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Linux build package (Editor component) as ZIP archive

For Android

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For developers

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Released: 11th July 2018

Previous stable version: AGS 3.4.0 forum thread

PLEASE TAKE A NOTE: In this version "Default" template is now named "Sierra-style".
(Need to make this warning, because several people have asked where did "Default" template go.)

This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- ChamberOfFear
- Crimson Wizard
- Gurok
- monkey0506
- Ryan O'Connor (one bug fix contribution)
- Scorpiorus (improvements to plugin drawing system)

And artists of the new Sierra-style template:
- CaesarCub
- Hobo
- Jim Reed
- ProgZmax
- Selmiak

Changes in the Patch 3:

Editor:
- Added scrollbars and zoom slider to the GUI editor.
- Added one extra zoom step to the Room editor and fixed mouse wheel scrolling zoom slider by 3 steps at once instead of 1.
- Fixed Undo history getting lost after saving the script.
- Fixed crash when importing old game's rooms with interaction variables.
- Fixed incorrect character names appearing after old game's import.

Engine:
- Reverted conversion of all graphics on load to 32-bit, made the game run in its native color again, but correctly convert to 32-bit display instead. This fixes certain bugs found in 16-bit games since the first 3.4.1 release.
- Fixed pressing ALT+ combination on Windows sometimes caused another key to "stuck", endlessly triggering key events in game.
- Fixed service key shortcuts (switching display mode, (un)locking mouse in window) did not work at particular stages of the game, like video playback and dialog options.
- Fixed unwanted transparency on built-in GUI in 8-bit games.
- Fixed engine was reporting string format errors as internal ones and not script's.
- Fixed crash when loading an old game's room with interaction variables.

Changes in the Patch 2:

Templates:
1. Now includes new "Sierra-style" template which substitutes elderly "Default" template and contains new age graphics.
Template topic: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=54703.0
2. Made small fixes to the Verb Coin template to make it compatible with 3.4.1 out of the box.

Editor:
- Font's line spacing and offset are now used when displaying GUI previews.

Engine:
- Removed limit on maximal asset files in a game package. (Now you may have over 10k voice files in speech.vox)
- Fixed game refused to start at all if speech.vox has bad format.
- Fixed DynamicSprite.SaveToFile() was not appending default "bmp" extension if user did not specify one.

Android:
- Updated port to work with 3.4.1 engine. Software renderer works again too (was broken in 3.4.0).

Changes in the Patch 1:

Engine:
- Removed game error reported when GUI coordinates were off the room limits.
- Fixed crash in Direct3D renderer when alt+tabbing out of fullscreen mode.
- Fixed OpenGL fullscreen mode was not minimized when you alt+tab from it.
- Fixed Direct3D and OpenGL renderers unnecessarily applied anti-aliasing on utility sprites (used for transition effects) when "smooth scaled sprites" option was enabled.

What is new in 3.4.1

Common features:
- Upgraded Windows version of AGS with Allegro v4.4 library (previously v4.2).
- Implemented "RenderAtScreenResolution" game setting. When enabled, characters and objects are scaled in screen pixels rather than game pixels. (NOTE: it was always enabled for Direct3D in the past, but now you can set it to your liking)
- Implemented VerticalOffset and LineSpacing properties for fonts.
- Removed limit on Dialog Topics (was 500 topics per game).
- Removed length limit on the names of Inventory, GUI and GUI Controls.
- Removed length limit on the names of Hotspots and Objects.
- Removed length limit on event handler names.

Editor:
- Removed legacy game compiler.
- Raw compiled game data is now saved in "Compiled\Data" folder, as opposed to just "Compiled".
- The speech.vox file is now not recompiled if game is quick-run (using F5). Engine is supposed to find newer files in the Speech folder.
- Editor can now import games older than 2.72, and newer too (3.*) if you have extracted data files from compiled executable.
- ScriptAPIVersion and ScriptCompatibilityLevel settings now have "Highest" option, which is meant for automatically enabling newest script API when upgrading old project in a newer editor.
- Added new "Default Setup" pane, which works similarily to "General Settings" and lets you configure default values for game setup.
- Added "Font Height (pixels)" readonly property to the Font's pane, which works for both WFN and TTF fonts and may be used as a reference.
- Made Editor correctly detect modern versions of MS Windows for display on About dialog and when sending anonymous statistics.
- New application icon to comply with 3.4.0 splash screen.
- Fixed crash when importing old games which have extended editor version string saved in the project files.
- Fixed unhandled exception occuring when user types "#undef", "#ifdef" or "#ifndef" on the last line of the script.
- Fixed #ifver and #ifnver not working properly if version number had only one component (major version).
- Few improvements to the game compilation made in hope to reduce occasional data corruption.

Script:
- Fixed local variables not working in the switch's case expressions.
- Fixed Strings in switch, making them compare by value again.
- Fixed compiler mistakes caused by the use of objects of empty type (that is - struct without any variables in it).
- Fixed few cases of possible compiler crashing when there is an unfinished statement in the end of the script.

Script API:
- A new parameter StopMovementStyle is added to following functions: LockView, LockViewAligned, LockViewFrame, LockViewOffset, UnlockView. This parameter can be eStopMoving (default) or eKeepMoving.
- DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile and SaveToFile now support path tokens and comply to the new file path rules (no writing files to the game's installation directory).
- Added missing readonly properties to get Lighting/Tinting parameters for Character and Object: HasExplicitLight, HasExplicitTint, LightLevel, TintBlue, TintGreen, TintRed, TintSaturation, TintLuminance.
- Added Mouse.SelectPreviousMode() and Mouse.IsModeEnabled(CursorMode) functions.
- Added readonly properties to get Button's animation state: Button.Animating, Button.Frame, Button.Loop, Button.View.
- Added GetFontHeight(FontType) and GetFontLineSpacing(FontType) functions.
- Added setter for System.Windowed property, letting to change it at runtime, switching between windowed and fullscreen modes.
- Added System.RenderAtScreenResolution property to change sprite rendering mode at runtime.

Engine:
- Added OpenGL renderer to Windows version.
- Added support for switching between fullscreen and windowed modes at runtime using Alt+Enter key combination.
- All supported hardware-accelerated graphic drivers (Direct3D and OpenGL) now run every game in 32-bit display mode by default, and convert game's graphics on load if that is required. This fixes loss of green hue precision in 16-bit games and allows to run 8-bit games, although latter is only partially supported: there are color mismatches and dynamic palette cycling is not working.
- Partial support for plugins drawing on screen for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D, OpenGL).
- Added support for global configuration file, which works as configuration for all games and overrides default game's config file. Individual game user's config overrides global one in its turn. Global config's location is platform-dependent (this feature is currently disabled on Windows).
- Implemented separate config option for game's shared data path, to keep it distinct from user-defined saves path.
- Engine saves last Windowed and RenderAtScreenResolution mode states to the user config file.
- Engine no longer writes and reads gamma level in saves, meaning that gamma keeps its current value when restoring a saved game.
- Removed arbitrary limit on number of sprites rendered at the same time for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D and OpenGL) (was 75), and another limit imposed on drawing entries for all drivers (was 200).
- Engine now tries to get voice files from the Speech folder first, if one exists, and speech.vox later when quick-run from the Editor.
- Fixed speech portrait was displayed below GUI, contrary to speech text.
- Fixed ShakeScreen command was causing graphic artifacts when game is run with software renderer.
- Fixed calling Character.ChangeView during idle animation results in new view being animated.
- Fixed Speech.SkipStyle getter return value for eSkipTime case.
- Fixed Speech.VoiceMode not returning correct values when speech.vox is not enabled/present.
- Fixed AdjustVolumeWithScaling character's property not working with the new audio system.
- Fixed volume drop was not applied to audio clips which begin playing during speech voice-over.
- Fixed Game.SetAudioTypeSpeechVolumeDrop did not affect currently playing clips until next voice-over begins.
- Fixed Game.TranslationFilename returning "default" instead of empty string if no translation is set.
- Fixed engine was trying to locate "My Documents" folder on Windows Vista and higher even though it did not need it, and reporting internal error if such folder was not found, even though "Saved Games" folder is used instead.
- Properly toggle console upon play.debug_mode variable change in script.
- Added missing stubs for agsjoy plugin.

WinSetup:
- Fixed display mode selection was missing certain items.

KNOWN ISSUES (to be updated)

- iOS port is probably still not working with this version.
- When using Direct3D, game misses 1 bottom row and 1 rightmost column of pixels of game image when "Render sprites at screen resolution" is OFF. This also might cause slight image distortion. There's a suspicion that that is a bug in Microsoft's Direct3D driver since Windows 7.
- When running game in OpenGL fullscreen system cursor may be visible when over black borders.

Engine Development / How should a proper audio system look like?

« on: 19 May 2018, 15:17 »

First of all, I'd like to ask to not assume that me, or anyone else, will jump into doing this right away (this is to prevent premature expectations).

It's well know to anyone who has every worked with contemporary AGS audio system, that its design is somewhat lacking (to say the least), causes lots of confusion, and feels clunky even if you know how it works.

There is an issue with unreliable audio clip index, which make it impossible to reference particular clips when using a formula or saved data (without creating additional arrays to store clip pointers in the wanted order). I am still aware of that, but personally think it's a separate issue, more related to resource organization in game (you will have same problem with any other item in game, such as characters or views).

What I'd like to discuss is, what a good audio API should be.

In the past there was a suggestion to introduce new type, something like "AudioPlayback", which is returned from AudioClip.Play instead of the channel. By assumption, that would reduce the problems people have when storing AudioChannel pointer for a long time, which may later get other clip played on it. Is it a good idea?

Other questions that come to mind, if there are properties that control sound, such as speed, volume, and so on, should they be a property of AudioPlayback or a channel? Should the user be able to set up a volume of the channel, perhaps?
Should channels be created by user in the project tree? If yes, then should there be a general list of channels, or channels per audio type?

Even if you cannot or do not want to consider how this should look like in script, from the user's perspective, what would you like to be able to do there, what items or parameters are essential to control for a game developer?

PS. I know that tzachs is designing an audio system in MonoAGS too, although he took the abstraction further compared to AGS. For example, in his system there is no such thing as "audio type", instead there are "tags" which are used to setup rules for playing a clip, such as how to choose a channel, and so on. While that approach is more flexible, idk if it will be used often to full degree. AGS could have simplier built-in behavior, but provide sufficient API to let users script their own playback rules. For example: let user to explicitly set clip to the particular channel.

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / AGS 3.4.1 - Patch 2

« on: 13 May 2018, 20:30 »

AGS 3.4.1 - Patch 2 released

Current release number: 3.4.1.13

Linux build package (Editor component) as ZIP archive

For Android

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

For developers

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

Released: 13th May 2018

Previous stable version: AGS 3.4.0 forum thread

This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- ChamberOfFear
- Crimson Wizard
- Gurok
- monkey0506
- Ryan O'Connor (one bug fix contribution)
- Scorpiorus (improvements to plugin drawing system)

And artists of the new Sierra-style template:
- CaesarCub
- Hobo
- Jim Reed
- ProgZmax
- Selmiak

Changes in the Patch 2:

Templates:
1. Now includes new "Sierra-style" template which substitutes elderly "Default" template and contains new age graphics.
Template topic: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=54703.0
2. Made small fixes to the Verb Coin template to make it compatible with 3.4.1 out of the box.

Editor:
- Font's line spacing and offset are now used when displaying GUI previews.

Engine:
- Removed limit on maximal asset files in a game package. (Now you may have over 10k voice files in speech.vox)
- Fixed game refused to start at all if speech.vox has bad format.
- Fixed DynamicSprite.SaveToFile() was not appending default "bmp" extension if user did not specify one.

Android:
- Updated port to work with 3.4.1 engine. Software renderer works again too (was broken in 3.4.0).

Changes in the Patch 1:

Engine:
- Removed game error reported when GUI coordinates were off the room limits.
- Fixed crash in Direct3D renderer when alt+tabbing out of fullscreen mode.
- Fixed OpenGL fullscreen mode was not minimized when you alt+tab from it.
- Fixed Direct3D and OpenGL renderers unnecessarily applied anti-aliasing on utility sprites (used for transition effects) when "smooth scaled sprites" option was enabled.

What is new in 3.4.1

Common features:
- Upgraded Windows version of AGS with Allegro v4.4 library (previously v4.2).
- Implemented "RenderAtScreenResolution" game setting. When enabled, characters and objects are scaled in screen pixels rather than game pixels. (NOTE: it was always enabled for Direct3D in the past, but now you can set it to your liking)
- Implemented VerticalOffset and LineSpacing properties for fonts.
- Removed limit on Dialog Topics (was 500 topics per game).
- Removed length limit on the names of Inventory, GUI and GUI Controls.
- Removed length limit on the names of Hotspots and Objects.
- Removed length limit on event handler names.

Editor:
- Removed legacy game compiler.
- Raw compiled game data is now saved in "Compiled\Data" folder, as opposed to just "Compiled".
- The speech.vox file is now not recompiled if game is quick-run (using F5). Engine is supposed to find newer files in the Speech folder.
- Editor can now import games older than 2.72, and newer too (3.*) if you have extracted data files from compiled executable.
- ScriptAPIVersion and ScriptCompatibilityLevel settings now have "Highest" option, which is meant for automatically enabling newest script API when upgrading old project in a newer editor.
- Added new "Default Setup" pane, which works similarily to "General Settings" and lets you configure default values for game setup.
- Added "Font Height (pixels)" readonly property to the Font's pane, which works for both WFN and TTF fonts and may be used as a reference.
- Made Editor correctly detect modern versions of MS Windows for display on About dialog and when sending anonymous statistics.
- New application icon to comply with 3.4.0 splash screen.
- Fixed crash when importing old games which have extended editor version string saved in the project files.
- Fixed unhandled exception occuring when user types "#undef", "#ifdef" or "#ifndef" on the last line of the script.
- Fixed #ifver and #ifnver not working properly if version number had only one component (major version).
- Few improvements to the game compilation made in hope to reduce occasional data corruption.

Script:
- Fixed local variables not working in the switch's case expressions.
- Fixed Strings in switch, making them compare by value again.
- Fixed compiler mistakes caused by the use of objects of empty type (that is - struct without any variables in it).
- Fixed few cases of possible compiler crashing when there is an unfinished statement in the end of the script.

Script API:
- A new parameter StopMovementStyle is added to following functions: LockView, LockViewAligned, LockViewFrame, LockViewOffset, UnlockView. This parameter can be eStopMoving (default) or eKeepMoving.
- DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile and SaveToFile now support path tokens and comply to the new file path rules (no writing files to the game's installation directory).
- Added missing readonly properties to get Lighting/Tinting parameters for Character and Object: HasExplicitLight, HasExplicitTint, LightLevel, TintBlue, TintGreen, TintRed, TintSaturation, TintLuminance.
- Added Mouse.SelectPreviousMode() and Mouse.IsModeEnabled(CursorMode) functions.
- Added readonly properties to get Button's animation state: Button.Animating, Button.Frame, Button.Loop, Button.View.
- Added GetFontHeight(FontType) and GetFontLineSpacing(FontType) functions.
- Added setter for System.Windowed property, letting to change it at runtime, switching between windowed and fullscreen modes.
- Added System.RenderAtScreenResolution property to change sprite rendering mode at runtime.

Engine:
- Added OpenGL renderer to Windows version.
- Added support for switching between fullscreen and windowed modes at runtime using Alt+Enter key combination.
- All supported hardware-accelerated graphic drivers (Direct3D and OpenGL) now run every game in 32-bit display mode by default, and convert game's graphics on load if that is required. This fixes loss of green hue precision in 16-bit games and allows to run 8-bit games, although latter is only partially supported: there are color mismatches and dynamic palette cycling is not working.
- Partial support for plugins drawing on screen for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D, OpenGL).
- Added support for global configuration file, which works as configuration for all games and overrides default game's config file. Individual game user's config overrides global one in its turn. Global config's location is platform-dependent (this feature is currently disabled on Windows).
- Implemented separate config option for game's shared data path, to keep it distinct from user-defined saves path.
- Engine saves last Windowed and RenderAtScreenResolution mode states to the user config file.
- Engine no longer writes and reads gamma level in saves, meaning that gamma keeps its current value when restoring a saved game.
- Removed arbitrary limit on number of sprites rendered at the same time for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D and OpenGL) (was 75), and another limit imposed on drawing entries for all drivers (was 200).
- Engine now tries to get voice files from the Speech folder first, if one exists, and speech.vox later when quick-run from the Editor.
- Fixed speech portrait was displayed below GUI, contrary to speech text.
- Fixed ShakeScreen command was causing graphic artifacts when game is run with software renderer.
- Fixed calling Character.ChangeView during idle animation results in new view being animated.
- Fixed Speech.SkipStyle getter return value for eSkipTime case.
- Fixed Speech.VoiceMode not returning correct values when speech.vox is not enabled/present.
- Fixed AdjustVolumeWithScaling character's property not working with the new audio system.
- Fixed volume drop was not applied to audio clips which begin playing during speech voice-over.
- Fixed Game.SetAudioTypeSpeechVolumeDrop did not affect currently playing clips until next voice-over begins.
- Fixed Game.TranslationFilename returning "default" instead of empty string if no translation is set.
- Fixed engine was trying to locate "My Documents" folder on Windows Vista and higher even though it did not need it, and reporting internal error if such folder was not found, even though "Saved Games" folder is used instead.
- Properly toggle console upon play.debug_mode variable change in script.
- Added missing stubs for agsjoy plugin.

WinSetup:
- Fixed display mode selection was missing certain items.

KNOWN ISSUES (to be updated)

- Need to make mobile ports (Android, iOS) work with this version.
- When using Direct3D, game misses 1 bottom row and 1 rightmost column of pixels of game image when "Render sprites at screen resolution" is OFF. This also might cause slight image distortion.
NOTE: there's a suspicion that that is a bug in Microsoft's Direct3D driver since Windows 7.
- When running game in OpenGL fullscreen system cursor may be visible when over black borders.

Site & Forum Reports / Updating online manual

« on: 09 Apr 2018, 10:45 »

Alright, since my post in the other thread was kind of hidden by discussing changes to wiki, I will repost the issue separately.

So, after AGA gave me permissions (or maybe I had them before, idk), I tried to upload new manual content to the website, but some issues were found, so I had to revert.

1. Pages on website use styles from external css file. While pages generated in repository have embedded css, and they are different (background, font, etc).
2. Pages on website have some additional script for toolbar display.
3. Website manual has additional html pages for contents, index etc. Manual in repository does not generate html pages for these. This means that even if I upload new topic pages, the contents tree will remain 3.2.1, and links won't match.

Would it be possible to find out who have created this online manual, and how?

For the reference:
Existing manual (corresponding to AGS 3.2.1): http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/manual/
Archive containing both versions of html pages for comparison: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v958t0938w76cyk/AGS--manualpages.zip?dl=0

General Discussion / Asking for an advice on finding a gamedev job

« on: 04 Apr 2018, 22:57 »

I was not sure how to best put this, so the post may be bit awkward. But I wanted to ask for an advice.

Back in 2016 I quit my office job because of AGS... partially hoping that would let me improve situation with the project, and partially because of stress. Probably I was not thinking straight, because it was AGS that caused all the stress. Some time later it became fully clear that the project is going nowhere, and I decided to return to the old job, but did not manage to stay on it for long. Don't know why exactly, but I literally was not able to get any kind of satisfaction anymore. I was constantly stressed out, and even being in the office with other people around made me frustrated. So after six months I quit again.
Since then it is about a full year as I am officially unemployed. During this time I participated in a small commercial project for couple of months, and was able to get some money, but quit eventually too, partially because AGS and related stuff still dominated my thoughts. It was the time when 3.4.1 was supposed to be released, and I could not stop thinking about that.
That took too much time to break away from this project that drained me from all the energy, and now I begin to realize something that was bothering me subconsciously these years. The thing is, I no longer could answer why I was even working on it all the time. This is not what I wanted to be doing. I remember dreaming of making games, not recoding someone else's engine for six years.

I fear this could have been a terrible mistake for me. I could have spent those six years learning contemporary engines and game development, instead I spent all that time for something that is barely useful anywhere else.

Right now I must be searching for a real job again and keep wondering would it be possible to find one in game development. The problem is, on one hand, that it does not anymore seem a good idea to just get a "normal" office job while trying to practice game projects in a free time. I'm afraid that would just cause more frustration, and I'll loose several years more without any achievement. On another hand, I have barely anything to "showcase", after spending years on AGS engine I was too stressed to actually work on any game, and just afraid that I won't be able to handle another work simultaneously. So this makes a stupid dilemma.
There are few projects I worked on in the past, which were kind of finished in the past, which could be mentioned just to give an idea, but idk if that means anything.

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

Today I would not even know what or where to begin with to start searching for any game-related jobs. Are there any sites or communities where one could find a job for someone with limited gamedev-specific experience?
Another issue is money... in the past I was involved in couple of game projects where I was supposed to be paid in the end, but unfortunately these projects never reached the point at which anything could be earned. I'd really rather not become a part of a game with vague perspectives again, at least not now.
So, frankly, how realistic that may be to get a position in a project with guaranteed payment in a sensible time period, like being paid monthly (even if a little bit), or at least once during the course of the year?

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / The benefits of walk-behind masks vs multilayered setting

« on: 10 Mar 2018, 20:47 »

Hello.

I am very curious about whether classic walk-behind masks has any practical advantage, even if in particular situations, over making multi-layered rooms (e.g. using objects). And whether such advantage is related to how AGS deals with masks (specific to workflow).

The main reason I am asking is that I noticed that tzachs's new developed engine supports walk-behind masks as an option, although the engine itself has 3d-texture rendering, so this seem to be a support of "legacy method" rather than actual necessity. So this is both a concern and curiosity on my side (not a big deal, but supporting extra features means spending extra effort).

AFAIK, the origin of this method comes from peculiarities of software rendering and system limits of old times. Walk-behinds could be used to optimize drawing a bit, and also save some space both on disk and memory.
But in a contemporary engine which uses textures it has zero advantage over adding extra layer to the room (as an object of sorts): it still has to be a separate texture to be drawn above characters.
Even in AGS, when you run game with Direct3D or OpenGL renderer, the engine "cuts out" the "walk-behind" piece of background onto a separate image, partially duplicating room image in memory.

So, there is seem to be no benefit from the program's or perfomance perspective anymore.

Is there any benefit from game designer's or artist's perspective?

I don't have much experience here, so my view on this is mostly speculative. One good thing about walk-behind maks I know is that you can make one fast assuming you have a right tool to do so , which may be useful if you are prototyping room with a flat background. On the bad side, annoying thing about masks is that you have to constantly keep it updated with background graphic: if an object on background changes in shape even by a pixel - the mask has to be synchronized again; so this might be counter-productive in the long run. Another thing is that walk-behind masks don't work with antialiasing or half-transparency.
In the abscence of a tool that allows you to draw masks and save them in engine's format, you would have to keep mask as a separate image (or as a layer in your background image document), so you are having multiple images anyway.

What is your view on walk-behind masks?

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / AGS 3.4.2 - alpha 3 - next WIP version

« on: 21 Feb 2018, 13:52 »

AGS 3.4.2 - Alpha 3

Download 3.4.2 (Alpha 3) as a .zip archive
Download Dark UI Theme for the editor

AGS source code central repository

ACHTUNG!

This is a development version of AGS 3.4.2.
Use at your own risk. Please back up any games before opening them in this version of AGS.
New settings in this version may make your project files unusable in previous versions after saving with this version.

Last updated: 31th of July, 2018
Has all content from AGS 3.4.1.13.

This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- ChamberOfFear
- Crimson Wizard
- Martin Sedlak (new pathfinding)
- morganw
- tzachs

What is new in 3.4.2

So far this update is mainly focused on improving the Editor's UI and tidying some things in the engine.

Common features:
- Removed font limit.

Editor:
- Editor requires .NET Framework 4.0 to run.
- Editor preferences are now stored using .NET configuration model, instead of the Windows registry.
- Added support for custom UI color themes.
- New navigation bar in the room editor, which allows to select any room object or region for editing, show/hide and lock room objects and regions in any combination.
- Improved how Room zoom slider works, now supports downscale.
- Added "Export mask to file" tool button to the Room Editor.
- Added "Always"choice to "Popup message on compile" preference. Successful compilation popup will only be displayed if "Always" choice is selected.
- Added shortcut key combination (Shift + F5) for stopping a game's debug run.
- Build autocomplete table a little faster.
- Don't modify filesystem permissions in Compiled directory when compiling the game.
Editor no longer requires non-standard "takeown.exe" utility.
- Corrected .NET version query for the anonymous statistics report.
- Fixed sprite folders collapsing after assigning sprite to a View frame or an object.
- Fixed view loops displayed with offset if the view panel area was scrolled horizontally prior to their creation.
- Fixed TextWindow GUI's elements could be deleted or moved in the editor with key controls.
- Fixed rooms not being rebuilt when running game just created from a template.

Engine:
- New pathfinder based on the A* jump point search.
- Implemented new savegame format. Much cleaner than the old one, and easier to extend, it should also reduce the size of the save files.
The engine is still capable of loading older saves, temporarily.
- Prevent game from crashing if there was an attempt to draw text with a non-existing font.
- Expanded some of the error messages providing more information to end-user and developers.
- On Linux improved CPU yield function, this supposedly may reduce CPU usage.

Windows:
- Windows version of AGS is now built with MSVS 2015 and higher.

On color themes

After launching the Editor, go to File - Preferences. In the "Editor Appearance" group box you will find "Color Theme" setting. If you haven't installed any themes yet the selection list will be empty. Press "Import Color Theme" and select appropriate JSON file, containing theme configuration.
Sample color theme: Dark UI Theme.

There is no specification on theme creation yet, but I hope there will be one at some point. For now you may copy and modify existing one. Themes are in JSON format, which you may edit in most simple text editors. If the theme is broken, the editor will report an error and reset to Default theme on startup.
ChamberOfFear also suggested creating a repository for the themes to let people upload their own and improve existing ones, which we may do in a future.

On new navigation bar in the room editor

This was made by tzachs back in 2014, but got into the editor only now. The feature is working, but may need polishing.

Screenshots (warning - big size):

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

Quoting tzachs (from his old thread) -

- Room Layers

This feature allows you to view (and edit) walkable areas/walk-behinds/hotspots/regions/characters/objects/edges in the same time (as opposed to only seeing one of them at a time, like we've seen before).
Well, not entirely though: walkable areas/walk-behinds/hotspots/regions still can't be seen together (as they use masks and is part of the natives dll so I skipped it for now) but they can be seen along objects, characters, and edges.

- Visibility

Each layer can be made visible/hidden by the push of a button. In addition, for the objects/characters/edges layers each item in the layer can also be made visible/hidden by the push of a button. This will only affect the editor, not the actual game.

- Locking

Each layer can be locked/unlocked by the push of a button. In addition, for each layer, each item in the layer can also be locked/unlocked by the push of a button.
A locked item cannot be moved until it is unlocked, useful to prevent mistakes when designing the room. This will only affect the editor, not the actual game.

On savegame format

AGS 3.4.2 introduces new savegame format. This had to be done for several reasons, mostly internal ones, because existing format was too difficult to maintain and expand.
From the user's perspective, the notable change is that save file will be somewhat smaller, because redundant data is no longer written there (I did some tests in the past, and iirc depending on circumstances the size reduction was about 20-40%, but this awaits confirmation).

The new format is completely non-compatible with the old one. This means that if you run some existing game with the new engine, and save a game, that save can't be loaded by previous engine.
On the other hand, new engine can still load old saves. Old saves support is temporarily and may be removed in future.
Keep these two points in mind if you plan on upgrading existing game to AGS 3.4.2.

Engine Development / Planning to fix AGS script file paths... again

« on: 16 Feb 2018, 17:02 »

The file access rules - is something that still bothers me in AGS, and I'd really wish to patch it as one of my last ammendments to the engine.

It all started when Radiant asked me to save config file in the user documents instead of current folder, because it does not work when the game is installed in C:/Program Files (or any other non-writeable location). Instead of doing just that I also decided to change how file access works in game scripts too, but I have doubts that did that fully right.
I would like to make final fixes to that, and decided to post here to get any input from other people and make sure I don't screw that up again.

Summing up current state of the file system (as of 3.4.1):
1) When working with file system in scripts (opening files, loading sprites, and so on), following tokens may be used to define location:
* $INSTALLDIR$ - a directory where game was installed.
* $SAVEGAMEDIR$ - a directory for savedgames, one for each system user.
* $APPDATADIR$ - a directory for storing shared data, same for all system users.

2) The rules for working with files are following:
* Absolute paths are forbidden.
* When using $INSTALLDIR$ you cannot write anything, only read existing files.
* Game config lets you set up custom paths for $SAVEGAMEDIR$ and $APPDATADIR$. This is done primarily to let players change save game location according to their preference.
* When no location token is given, engine remaps the path as relative to $APPDATADIR$. Note, that this is different from how it worked before AGS 3.3.5, where path without token meant "relative to game's (installation) directory".
* Now, there is something not very explicit, which was made primarily for backward compatibility: when you are trying to read file using relative path without token, the engine will check two paths: first in $APPDATADIR$, then in $INSTALLDIR$. If a file is found in $APPDATADIR$, then it will be read, otherwise file in $INSTALLDIR$ (if it exists).
The reason for doing this was to silently remap relative paths in scripts in old games to $APPDATADIR$ when they are writing files, but still let them be able to read existing files from the current directory.
But this solution is something I am not very proud of...

The problems, as I see them, are:

1) Is it really good to completely deny writing to the current game directory? Initially I thought it is, since contemporary operating systems have stricter rules to where programs may write files. So this acts as a safety measure to prevent unexperienced game creators from making a mistake (as being said, game may fail if it tries to write to C:/Program Files/...).
On the other hand I myself found at least one case when that may be useful: if you are creating an edit mode inside your game, which creates data for the game itself.
Currently the only way to do that would be to setup custom path for $APPDATADIR$ for the development time and then do not forget to reset it to default before public release.
There is now a token with explicit meaning ($INSTALLDIR$), for which we may have a warning in the manual, telling not to write files there without serious reasons.

2) What should be the way to treat paths without a token? The idea behind changing from treating them as relative of game dir to relative of $APPDATADIR$ is that new users won't make their games impossible to be run from C:/Program Files by mistake. Is it a good reasoning? Because while it may make things safer it also may cause confusion
when user will look for the written files in the game directory and won't find them.

3) Not much related to running new games, but in terms of backward compatibility, is there a better solution for their issue? I am speaking of a situation when the game writes files to game directory, which makes it impossible to be install in particular locations.

The possible solutions I am thinking about right now are:

1) Allow to write files in $INSTALLDIR$. There are options here: make it work always or only if game works in Debug mode, if that makes sense.

2) I don't have a decisive opinion about how to deal with paths without tags.

3) I would like to try implementing different solution for older games. To remind, the problem is this: consider there is a game made a while ago where game author has used paths without token to save files to the game directory. You won't be able to use such game if it's installed somewhere where you cannot write (restricted directories, read-only device). One solution in such case is to simply install it somewhere else. But if that's unwanted or impossible for any reason, may there be a simple fix for this situation?
Right now, as I said, engine silently remaps writing file to $APPDATADIR$, but when reading it has to check both $APPDATADIR$ and $INSTALLDIR$.
Of course this is not ideal, because user may not find files where he expected to. This may be particulary annoying with games which include level editor, like old "ColorWise" game, for instance, where original levels are stored in the game directory, and player will probably expect to find all levels in one place.
So, I was thinking, what if instead of silently changing the path, it would use another option in config. The meaning of option would be "how to treat paths without token", and has possible values corresponding to supported path tokens. Such option could be used like a casual hack: if you've found an old game (or a newer game where author did not consider possible issues) that writes files to the game directory, and that causes trouble for you, you just set this option to something else, like $APPDATADIR$. (Naturally, at same time you may also set custom path for $APPDATADIR$).

BTW, if such option is introduced that may also change the opinion on p. 2), and perhaps paths without tags could mean $INSTALLDIR$ again. Idk about that.

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / AGS 3.4.1 - Patch 1

« on: 28 Jan 2018, 18:49 »

AGS 3.4.1 - Patch 1 released

Current release number: 3.4.1.12

Linux build package (Editor component) as ZIP archive

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

Released: 28th January 2018

Previous stable version: AGS 3.4.0 forum thread

This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- ChamberOfFear
- Crimson Wizard
- Gurok
- monkey0506
- Ryan O'Connor (one bug fix contribution)
- Scorpiorus (improvements to plugin drawing system)

Changes in the Patch 1:

Engine:
- Removed game error reported when GUI coordinates were off the room limits.
- Fixed crash in Direct3D renderer when alt+tabbing out of fullscreen mode.
- Fixed OpenGL fullscreen mode was not minimized when you alt+tab from it.
- Fixed Direct3D and OpenGL renderers unnecessarily applied anti-aliasing on utility sprites (used for transition effects) when "smooth scaled sprites" option was enabled.

What is new in 3.4.1

Common features:
- Upgraded Windows version of AGS with Allegro v4.4 library (previously v4.2).
- Implemented "RenderAtScreenResolution" game setting. When enabled, characters and objects are scaled in screen pixels rather than game pixels. (NOTE: it was always enabled for Direct3D in the past, but now you can set it to your liking)
- Implemented VerticalOffset and LineSpacing properties for fonts.
- Removed limit on Dialog Topics (was 500 topics per game).
- Removed length limit on the names of Inventory, GUI and GUI Controls.
- Removed length limit on the names of Hotspots and Objects.
- Removed length limit on event handler names.

Editor:
- Removed legacy game compiler.
- Raw compiled game data is now saved in "Compiled\Data" folder, as opposed to just "Compiled".
- The speech.vox file is now not recompiled if game is quick-run (using F5). Engine is supposed to find newer files in the Speech folder.
- Editor can now import games older than 2.72, and newer too (3.*) if you have extracted data files from compiled executable.
- ScriptAPIVersion and ScriptCompatibilityLevel settings now have "Highest" option, which is meant for automatically enabling newest script API when upgrading old project in a newer editor.
- Added new "Default Setup" pane, which works similarily to "General Settings" and lets you configure default values for game setup.
- Added "Font Height (pixels)" readonly property to the Font's pane, which works for both WFN and TTF fonts and may be used as a reference.
- Made Editor correctly detect modern versions of MS Windows for display on About dialog and when sending anonymous statistics.
- New application icon to comply with 3.4.0 splash screen.
- Fixed crash when importing old games which have extended editor version string saved in the project files.
- Fixed unhandled exception occuring when user types "#undef", "#ifdef" or "#ifndef" on the last line of the script.
- Fixed #ifver and #ifnver not working properly if version number had only one component (major version).
- Few improvements to the game compilation made in hope to reduce occasional data corruption.

Script:
- Fixed local variables not working in the switch's case expressions.
- Fixed Strings in switch, making them compare by value again.
- Fixed compiler mistakes caused by the use of objects of empty type (that is - struct without any variables in it).
- Fixed few cases of possible compiler crashing when there is an unfinished statement in the end of the script.

Script API:
- A new parameter StopMovementStyle is added to following functions: LockView, LockViewAligned, LockViewFrame, LockViewOffset, UnlockView. This parameter can be eStopMoving (default) or eKeepMoving.
- DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile and SaveToFile now support path tokens and comply to the new file path rules (no writing files to the game's installation directory).
- Added missing readonly properties to get Lighting/Tinting parameters for Character and Object: HasExplicitLight, HasExplicitTint, LightLevel, TintBlue, TintGreen, TintRed, TintSaturation, TintLuminance.
- Added Mouse.SelectPreviousMode() and Mouse.IsModeEnabled(CursorMode) functions.
- Added readonly properties to get Button's animation state: Button.Animating, Button.Frame, Button.Loop, Button.View.
- Added GetFontHeight(FontType) and GetFontLineSpacing(FontType) functions.
- Added setter for System.Windowed property, letting to change it at runtime, switching between windowed and fullscreen modes.
- Added System.RenderAtScreenResolution property to change sprite rendering mode at runtime.

Engine:
- Added OpenGL renderer to Windows version.
- Added support for switching between fullscreen and windowed modes at runtime using Alt+Enter key combination.
- All supported hardware-accelerated graphic drivers (Direct3D and OpenGL) now run every game in 32-bit display mode by default, and convert game's graphics on load if that is required. This fixes loss of green hue precision in 16-bit games and allows to run 8-bit games, although latter is only partially supported: there are color mismatches and dynamic palette cycling is not working.
- Partial support for plugins drawing on screen for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D, OpenGL).
- Added support for global configuration file, which works as configuration for all games and overrides default game's config file. Individual game user's config overrides global one in its turn. Global config's location is platform-dependent (this feature is currently disabled on Windows).
- Implemented separate config option for game's shared data path, to keep it distinct from user-defined saves path.
- Engine saves last Windowed and RenderAtScreenResolution mode states to the user config file.
- Engine no longer writes and reads gamma level in saves, meaning that gamma keeps its current value when restoring a saved game.
- Removed arbitrary limit on number of sprites rendered at the same time for hardware-accelerated renderers (Direct3D and OpenGL) (was 75), and another limit imposed on drawing entries for all drivers (was 200).
- Engine now tries to get voice files from the Speech folder first, if one exists, and speech.vox later when quick-run from the Editor.
- Fixed speech portrait was displayed below GUI, contrary to speech text.
- Fixed ShakeScreen command was causing graphic artifacts when game is run with software renderer.
- Fixed calling Character.ChangeView during idle animation results in new view being animated.
- Fixed Speech.SkipStyle getter return value for eSkipTime case.
- Fixed Speech.VoiceMode not returning correct values when speech.vox is not enabled/present.
- Fixed AdjustVolumeWithScaling character's property not working with the new audio system.
- Fixed volume drop was not applied to audio clips which begin playing during speech voice-over.
- Fixed Game.SetAudioTypeSpeechVolumeDrop did not affect currently playing clips until next voice-over begins.
- Fixed Game.TranslationFilename returning "default" instead of empty string if no translation is set.
- Fixed engine was trying to locate "My Documents" folder on Windows Vista and higher even though it did not need it, and reporting internal error if such folder was not found, even though "Saved Games" folder is used instead.
- Properly toggle console upon play.debug_mode variable change in script.
- Added missing stubs for agsjoy plugin.

WinSetup:
- Fixed display mode selection was missing certain items.

KNOWN ISSUES (to be updated)

- Need to make mobile ports (Android, iOS) work with this version.
- When using Direct3D, game misses 1 bottom row and 1 rightmost column of pixels of game image when "Render sprites at screen resolution" is OFF. This also might cause slight image distortion.
NOTE: there's a suspicion that that is a bug in Microsoft's Direct3D driver since Windows 7.
- When running game in OpenGL fullscreen system cursor may be visible when over black borders.

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Survey: what is good in AGS and what needs improvement

« on: 12 Jan 2018, 01:10 »

Hello.

First of all, this is NOT another "feature request" topic.
This is also NOT "what to add to the next version of AGS" topic.

Sorry for this disclaimer. Please read further

.

There are few new engines underway, being made by people known in AGS community, such as XAGE, MonoAGS, and maybe some others we do not know about. They may copy AGS to some degree or reimagine adventure creating tool in their own way. Since I am currently considering contributing to one of them, and just because I think that might be important for any such undertaking, I would like to make a following survey.

The primary targets for this survey are people who have big experience working with AGS, but others may participate too, of course.

Survey has only two simple questions, but they may need extensive answers:
1) What do you like about AGS, and would like to keep if any new creative tool arrives?
2) What do you think should be changed (added, removed, altered)?

Now, this is NOT about simple and obvious things, like
- not being able to change GUI color at runtime, or
- having a limit of N sprites, or
- running on many platforms, etc

but rather about ones, such as
* editing workflow,
* methods to achieve something you want,
* script API design (how well does script allow you to control game behavior), and so forth.

If you have experience working with other game creating systems, and may make a comparison, please do so.

I know that similar discussions were held in the past, but that may be hard to find these posts, so I wanted to make something "centralized" for this time. But links to old forum threads are also accepted.

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Procedural detective game

« on: 02 Jan 2018, 20:42 »

Hello.

I would like to tell about one idea that interests me. I had it for quite a long time in a form of random thoughts, but recently decided to go and try implementing this even if in a limited form, for starters.

This idea is of procedurically generated detective adventure game.

There was a pretty good number of procedural games in the past, so I guess everyone can imagine what is it in general. I've also seen procedural detective games before. Although I must admit that haven't played much of them, so cannot know many details, but the ones I've seen were mainly based on randomization of predefined roles and scenarios. While that may work perfectly for the game, my intention was to go further (or deeper), and instead of randomly granting every character a role (killer, victim, thief, witness, etc), grant them conflicting personalities and ambitions, that may randomly result in committing a crime under "fortunate" circumstances.

As such this is not only a game project, but also a research project about building a character AI. Or maybe even "story AI".

If you think above is a bit vague, let me give an example.

Imagine there is a mansion full of party guests. Each guest has particular personality traits and wishes assigned at the game's generation. Guests are wandering around the house, following certain rules (like avoiding restricted areas).
Consider one of the guests have a "cleptomaniac" personality, or maybe there is "financial problems" issue troubling them. This character enters a room with some "expensive item" on the showcase. A combination of character's traits and aims gives them a motive to steal the item. They wait for the right moment and do that. This is how the crime takes place.

The peculiarity of this approach that intrigues me much - is that since there are no predefined roles, not only player does not know who the criminal is, but even the game does not "know" that, until crime happened. In fact, there is always a theoretical possibility that more than one crime may take place (with different motives and participants), and maybe even sequences of events following first crime help another one to occur.

As with any AI, it is a matter to programmatically depict decision making. This game would require explaining such things through the code, as the concept of crime itself, clues, motives, ambitions and aims, personality traits and conflicts, and on advanced level - planning a strategy through assuming sequential events, manipulating other people, and so forth.

Obviously such approach also makes it harder to create a flawless scenario, but the challenge is perhaps the interesting part here.
The final goal of this potential project is to create AI that would be flexible and smart enough to generate an interesting game.

Editor Development / The reasons why this project is/was screwed up

« on: 31 Dec 2017, 21:59 »

Following are the reasons why this project was screwed up from the very beginning. Just for the sake of history. I'd like to believe this may help someone to avoid same mistakes, but people seem to rarely learn on their own, so IDK.

Actually, I cannot think of anything that was made right here, from the first steps every mistake that could be made was made.

1. The problem with AGS was the reliance on old library that was already badly working on contemporary systems in 2012. Instead of immediately moving to better up-to-date library (SDL2 or Allegro5), or framework (like ScummVM) the old library was patched to somehow work on wanted platforms.
Usually the patching was performed by a single person. After such person took their leave, little information remained about their work, and whenever any kind of issue arised with the port, it took a lot of effort to figure out what to do.
Often the library was patched having only one particular port in mind. Sometimes a functionality was added right into this patch, different from the rest of the engine, causing inconsistences.

A lot of additional work related to device controls and graphic modes could be omitted, if we could rely on modern library. For example, I had to rewrite graphics renderers 5 or 6 times adding better display mode selection over those years.

The result: AGS is still based on same old library that work worse and worse on contemporary systems.

2. The problem of AGS was that Windows version was glued to particular old version of MSVS, which was even non-free. Instead of immediately looking for a way to remove that dependency, we kept it for several years.

Result: many potential contributors could not contribute because they could not even build it.

3. The problem with AGS was bad program code. Instead of immediately refactor it from top to bottom, this was only partially complete before we switched to compatibility fixes, and then - adding new functionality. Because of that a lot of time was wasted trying to hack new stuff into existing code. Supposedly, the bad code also scared away other potential contributors.

Additional moment: there was already a refactored code made by ScummVM developer, licensed under same license as AGS, which could be used, even if partially. But it was never used.

The result: AGS still has got a lot of non-refactored code which is barely known, and many features or fixes that were very wanted were never added because of that.

4. The problem with AGS was that the engine and editor contained a lot of legacy support that was practically useless for making game in current day, but cluttered up the code and made it difficult to develop it further.

Instead of splitting out legacy support into separate branch, we not only kept it in the engine, but increased its amount by adding support for even older games.
Because of this, adding any new feature required a lot of extra time, necessity to test whether ancient games still run with this engine after every update. This additionally mixed up with the non-refactored code producing more mess.

It may be hard to fully recognize consequences of this decision. A lot of system limits are there only because of legacy support and old plugin API support. There was a time when I spent over half of a year trying to remove these limits while keeping the legacy support, but in the end just threw the code out, so ugly it was.
Similarily, a lot of features could not be easily added simply because there was some fragile legacy stuff that could break.

Result: amount of time just wasted for nothing is impossible to calculate. Neither it is possible to know how much we could have done more if not for this.
Number of potential collaborators probably did not want to participate in project because of confusing code.

5. The problem with AGS was that with very little number of collaborators nevertheless we sometimes wasted time on something that could have been avoided. It was in our interests to take easier routes requiring less job where possible. Instead, the project started with one developer willing to write a class library specifically for AGS instead of using standard one. Another developer kept waiting several months for those classes, purposedly trying to avoid adding standard ones into engine. When it became clear that there will be none, instead of immediately switching to standard library, that second developer, for the reasons he cannot even explain today, decided to follow suggested idea and write these classes himself. In the end he did, kind of, but then realized that with them he will be drawned into maintaining utility classes instead of working on engine itself, so, again, just threw the code away. So, now we do use standard library, but nearly two years were lost.

This is only one such example. I could probably remember other not so useful stuff that I wasted time on, because someone said (in the end many things I did were not even added to the release).

6. The problem with AGS was the lack of automation. Everything had to be made manually. No automatic builds, let alone tests, nothing. If a person wanted to suggest features or changes, developers had to manually build and test their version to just make sure it compiles.
There was no way to know if all ports are still working or were broken by some of the recent additions except for building them all or waiting when someone tries to. And not everyone could build all the ports, naturally.
Making a full release package with all the data - demo game, templates, etc, - became such ordeal, that frankly, I tried to delay release every time until more changes accumulate, simply because I did not want to go through all this too often.

7. The problem with AGS was terrible organization. This was a project without actual leadership nor vision. There was no development plan, no documentation. Everyone just did some stuff as they see fit.
There was very little communication between game developers and AGS developers. With lots of ideas it was difficult to filter out things that were actually important to many people. A lot of critical nuances stayed unknown until occasionally mentioned years later.
A lot of tasks, even mentioned on forums, were never solved, even though several people could state their interest in that. Good example is this thread:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51340.0
Just look at this:

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

From 2014 to 2018, and it did not move anywhere. Meanwhile, this is not even related to engine code or C++.

If organization were better, perhaps a number of other problems not directly related to coding engine could have been solved. (e.g. this: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=55646.0)
Simply because people could notice that such task exists.

Editor Development / Way to patch the game without replacing it whole

« on: 30 Dec 2017, 15:00 »

This is long overdue, but recently my attention was brought again to this old post from 2014 (I think it is by one of the creators of Primordia):
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/primordia-a-point-and-click-adventure-now-available.49740/page-22#post-3135923

It is nearly 2018 now, but all those issues still exist.

I answered this on gtihub back few years ago, but I guess no one noticed. Perhaps I should've try harder and post here, but, to be honest, don't remember if any game dev has ever asked me about this.

Anyway...

There is this command-line tool pack made by github user rofl0r back in 2012-13: https://github.com/rofl0r/agsutils

Among other things they can unpack and repack AGS game file.
A small caveat - they only known to compile under Linux, so probably might need be updated to compile under Windows too.

The solution to game patching is as following:
1. Provide a patch script and patch contents (e.g. in ZIP archive).
2. Patch script (written in any common scripting language, heck even batch for Windows system) -
2a. unpacks patch archive to folder P.
2b. runs unpacker tool to extract game data to folder G.
2c. copies patch files from P to G.
2d. runs packer tool to recreate game file with the new files of folder G.
2e. deletes temporary files.
3. Profit: you have a game exe with new contents.

EDIT: right, how to create patch in the first place:
a. You need to have two game files: old and new one.
b. Unpack both into folders O and N.
c. Compare the contents and find the files in N that do not match O.
d. Create a ZIP archive that onlu contains changed files.

This may be further improved by writing a simple GUI wrapper over those utilities.

Limitations:
Of course with current AGS package system you won't be able to replace certain items without replacing larger chunk. Sprites is the main problem here, because even inside game package they are stored as another monolithic file (sprcache.dat). Another thing is script modules: they are merged together with main game data (game, character, inventory descriptions, etc). Room files (CRM) have both room background, properties and scripts merged altogether. This is indeed something you cannot change without rewriting way AGS handles these.

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Integrating AGS with ScummVM?

« on: 25 Dec 2017, 15:43 »

Quote from: morganw on 25 Dec 2017, 15:39

Personally I would like to think there was an opportunity to have a continually developed runtime using the SCUMMVM backend, that does not maintain backwards compatibility and can have a few more contemporary features.

This is one of the possibilities. I had big doubts in the past, particularily because they did not have hardware-accelerated gfx support, which I'd like to have in AGS. But now they seem to have it, or so I heard.

There may actually be two variants here:
- develop AGS runtime as a part of their framework;
- only take their backends system and develop runtime separately (if that's technically and legally possible).

But I guess this all is a separate topic. [Done! –Snarky]

Site & Forum Reports / Google Chrome makes weird warnings about AGS forum links

« on: 24 Dec 2017, 02:16 »

Sorry, that is kind of weird, what started very recently when I click on some forum links in posts leading to old threads (from 2011 - 2012), Google Chrome shows that red danger screen, and sais that -
"www. shuugouteki. net" is a dangerous site that may install malicious software. I have no idea what this site even is, because link clearly is pointing to http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/***.

Going onto these threads step by step from the main forum page works well nevertheless.

What may this be?

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / AGS 3.4.1

« on: 23 Dec 2017, 20:49 »

AGS 3.4.1 released

Current release number: 3.4.1.11