Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Doctor Who Finale - what does everyone think?

« on: 21 May 2013, 21:43 »

man i have bearly seen season 8, i am waiting for it to show up on netflix

You will have to wait a long time. They haven't even started filming it yet

Here are my thoughts... They did a bang up job with the finale. I am not too thrilled with Moffat as a writer. I think he is cocky and I liked Doctor Who because it was British. However, and I am allowed to say this because I am American..., I feel that Moffat Americanized D-WHO a bit too much and got rid of a lot of the camp. I get that he wants to draw a larger audience and it probably helped the show from not being cancelled, however, I miss the Eccleston/Tennant time frame. I like Matt Smith, he is a GREAT doctor. Definitely one of my favorites, although David Tennant is number one in my book. But I just am not enjoying it like I was for the first 4 series/seasons. I want Russel T Davies back.

Going back to the Finale. I think it was great. I was happy to see all 11 doctors and even the scene with the Doctor stealing the Tardis which was never televised before. It was great. Clara's story, while not my favorite of the companions story, had a great resolve. However, I am convinced that she is River Song in some form. Don't know how or why, but just too much of her feels like River Song to me. I like Clara. She has a fun personality and she cares for the Doctor, so she is very enjoyable to watch. She is no Donna Noble, but thats ok.

As for River, I think she gives balance to the Doctor and I am very happy they introduced her to the series. I wish there were more with David Tennant, but thats ok. I liked how they resolved the post-library episode of River, but I am sure we have not seen the last of pre-library episode River.

Though the episode was 15 minutes long, it went by very quickly. That means I enjoyed it. My wife and I watched it 3 times the day it was released on Amazon. (Watch the Amazon episode as the BBC America and Itunes version removes the David Tennant scene). The whisper men were ok. Everyone said they would become a new favorite. While they weren't that bad, they are no way near being my favorites. While the relationship between Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax is an unusual one, I enjoy having them be in the series and would hope they keep having them. I wouldn't even mind a spin-off of the characters. My favorite parts of the finale all really had to do with Strax, from the part where he didn't realize that River was a woman, to the part where he said this:

Strax: Do not worry, we have the advantage, they are unarmed.
Jenny: So are we!
Strax: Do not divulge our military secrets!

Or something along those lines.. Either way, it was funny.

As for John Hurt.. My only gripe with the episode was this part: "INTRODUCING JOHN HURT AS THE DOCTOR". What was that text supposed to be about? We know he was the Doctor. It was unnecessary and seemed to be another trademark Moffat move. I will admit, in a non-campy way, Moffat is a brilliant writer and I love most of his stuff. I mean, have you watched Sherlock??? But he is just too cocky and tends to ruin or convert anything that wasn't his by Moffatizing it.

Back to John Hurt. To me, I believe he represents the 8th Doctor with Paul McGann. He is the only Doctor in which we do not know what happens throughout his history. In fact, he was only in the TV Movie after immediately regenerating from Sylvestor McCoy. I just think of the first few episodes with Christopher Eccleston where he has no idea what he looks like, hinting that he had just recently regenerated. I do not believe then that John Hurt represents the 9th Doctor. So there is a whole gap between 8 and 9. I believe Doctor 8 had at some point forsaken his name and destroyed the Time Lords/Daleks during the Time war. The time war hadn't begun until after the 8th Doctor had come to be and before the he regenerated into the 9th Doctor. People are talking about a possible regeneration between 8 and 9. Its possible, but I just don't think so. Matt Smith signed on to Series 8 and that will be his last most likely, having him regenerate into Doctor 13 then if John Hurt was the real 9 which would mean that the series could end or they would have to come up with a very good explanation for a 13th regeneration. Plus, take a look at the clothing that John Hurt was wearing. It was nearly identical to what Paul McGann wore in the tv Movie.

2

Engine Development / Re: Skinning the winsetup

« on: 30 Apr 2013, 20:35 »

I think there is a RestartGame function, but I believe it just sets the game to the launch point, but not really restart the engine itself.

3

Engine Development / Re: AGS engine Android port

« on: 25 Apr 2013, 04:26 »

I believe that if you replace the target Android SDK to be 14 or higher, it will show a soft key menu button, which would then allow you to pop up the keyboard. That has to be done in the Android Manifest file of the source code. I will try re-compiling the sources I have to see if that would do the trick.

EDIT:

Actually, JJS, if you change the Keycode_Back to perform this this:

Code: Adventure Game Studio

1. if ((key == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) && ((ev.getFlags() & 0x80) > 0)) // FLAG_LONG_PRESS
2.                                 {
3.                                         ignoreNextActionUp_Back = true;
4.                                         openOptionsMenu();
5.                                 }

in dispatchKeyEvent in AGSEngine.java, it should allow you to longpress the back button on screen and pop up the menu which has all the options we need: Toggle Keyboard, Exit Game, F Keys, etc... That would then allow the game to work on Nexus 7/10, ASUS and Kindle devices or other devices without hardware keys.

4

Engine Development / Re: Skinning the winsetup

« on: 25 Apr 2013, 02:23 »

This would actually be incredibly useful for commercial games. The problem with the current winsetup is that it confuses customers, since most of the options don't even apply for specific games. This is no big deal for AGSers because everyone knows what all the buttons do already.

You and Dave were exactly who I was thinking about for this. It would be a huge benefit to commercial developers. As was said, not every option on winsetup applies to all games. Not to mention that it is a bland screen when it comes to commercial properties. But as was said, anyone can really develop a customized winsetup app (In Java, VB, Visual C#, etc...) externally from AGS and it could work. The CFG file after all is a plain text file and nothing more.

Janet, as for your last point... Again, you can do it from within the game. Take a look at the File scripting commands in AGS. Specifically ReadRawLineBack and ReadStringBack to edit the config file from within a game. The unfortunate thing about editing cfg files within a game is, that changing those settings would require a reboot of the game as most of those options are graphic/hardware related. For Game Translations, I just recently learned this, you can at the very least change THAT in-game using ChangeTranslation, Game.TranslationFileName and IsTranslationAvailable. In the game/global functions scripts there are other things that could qualify as "Settings" that you might also want to take a look at. Just a thought.

5

Engine Development / Re: Skinning the winsetup

« on: 24 Apr 2013, 21:38 »

As far as CW is saying, yes. And after testing acwin.exe --setup without winsetup.exe in the directory, CW is right about that. But again, you can still make your own setup to edit or create the cfg file and it would work the same.

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Engine Development / Re: Skinning the winsetup

« on: 24 Apr 2013, 20:54 »

Technically CW, since the engine setup writes a cfg file, anyone could write an app that creates or edits the config file. Maybe I am mistaken, but I think that would work.

7

General Discussion / Re: Thousandth Post

« on: 22 Apr 2013, 22:06 »

For those who want to know what the AGS community was like before moving to this place, here's a brief history:

M0DS and I were around then too. I was making CJ a book of suggestions for him to implement. It was great. Also, there was Jereon Dekker (Or something like that) hanging around.

Apparently I reached 1000 posts. Who knew? But it doesn't show up on my milestones. It stops at 950 for some reason.

8

General Discussion / Re: Thousandth Post

« on: 19 Apr 2013, 19:55 »

Yeah, and I don't even have 800 posts yet. Although, if you were to tally up my old EZ Board posts, you might come up with over a thousand then.

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AGS Games in Production / Re: Maniac Mansion - Dott-Style (We're back!)

« on: 17 Apr 2013, 21:56 »

Congrats! I am looking forward to this. I Wish I could help, but the only thing I could offer is Italian Translation and to tell you the truth... I wouldn't have much time for that. If you are desperate though, let me know.

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Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Re: AGS/General adventure game-making resources

« on: 17 Apr 2013, 21:34 »

I have been slowly working on my Simpsons Template over the years. In the past few months though I have been really going nuts on it. I have about 50 rooms, still 12 playable characters, but now some of them contain extra animations. I also added an LEC Style GUI to the template for the user to choose from if they would like. The template is updated now to AGS 3.30. Every room is connected and ready to go along with Walkable area's and walk behinds. The only thing thats left to do with it for its next release is to give some documentation and also finish the hotspots. Basically, I want the template to be completely ready to be made into a game or machinimasodes with as little as possible work needed from the developer. I still got a bit to go, but the next update to it will be ready within 2013, thats for sure.

11

General Discussion / Re: The Bombing in Boston

« on: 17 Apr 2013, 01:57 »

Its just horrible that the best way people think they can prove a point is by going and hurting innocent people. "Yeah Boston Marathon Terrorists(And really any violent group/terror cells, etc...), you totally made everything much better now that people have died and many have become maimed. Point proven, whatever it was supposed to be!" Idiots.

12

Editor Development / Re: AGS 3.3.0 Beta Release

« on: 17 Apr 2013, 01:53 »

Hey tzachs. I compiled the new Git upload. Still giving me that issue. It most likely is an issue on my system then.

Does this happen if you use 3.2.1?
I believe we should eventually find the root of this problem, even if it happens only on some systems.

Yes, it does. Sorry.

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Editor Development / Re: AGS 3.3.0 Beta Release

« on: 17 Apr 2013, 00:10 »

Hey tzachs. I compiled the new Git upload. Still giving me that issue. It most likely is an issue on my system then. Oh well. Thanks for Trying.

14

Editor Development / Re: AGS 3.3.0 Beta Release

« on: 15 Apr 2013, 14:47 »

tzachs, I sent you a pm with a link. That link will reproduce it once you turn it into a new project. It did on mine. Hope that helps a bit. But as I said, it happens even with a brand new project from scratch. Maybe its just my system? I could try and reproduce a video for you if you would like.

15

Engine Development / Re: AGS engine Android port

« on: 15 Apr 2013, 03:05 »

I obtained the latest release and have been trying to build it, but have gotten into trouble pretty quickly. When I try to build the native engine library using ndk-build, as explained in the docs and in this comment I end up getting this error:

Install        : libagsengine.so => jni/../libs/armeabi/libagsengine.so
Install        : libpe.so => jni/../libs/armeabi/libpe.so
Install        : libags_snowrain.so => jni/../libs/armeabi/libags_snowrain.so
Install        : libagsblend.so => jni/../libs/armeabi/libagsblend.so
Install        : libagsflashlight.so => jni/../libs/armeabi/libagsflashlight.so
make: *** No rule to make target `jni/../jni/../../../Engine/../Plugins/agslua/agslua/agslua/agslua_autogen.cpp', needed by `obj/local/armeabi/objs/agslua/__/Plugins/agslua/agslua/agslua/agslua_autogen.o'.  Stop.

The only thing that I seem to be doing differently is that I am using revision 8e rather than 8d.

Which Directory are you running it from? Most likely the reason why its doing that is that the .SO files are compiled already. Delete the OBJ folder inside library folder and then run the NDK Again. It should work.

16

Editor Development / Re: AGS 3.3.0 Beta Release

« on: 14 Apr 2013, 01:09 »

The first message that appears when I edit a script file and then save it:

The File SCRIPTNAME.asc has been modified externally. Do you want to reload it?

When I hit yes, it would just crash, no error message. The funny thing is, Last night I was able to reproduce it every time, even after restarting my pc. For some reason, now, it wont crash. However, it still brings up the message above, which is still pretty annoying for every time I save a script. I do not know if this makes a difference, but the game I am working on was built with AGS 2.62 first, then I brought it into 2.72 and then 3.0 and finally 3.30. I figured I would mention that, but I don't think it really makes a difference that it does that because I started a new game and tried to edit the text file and it did the same thing.

17

Editor Development / Re: AGS 3.3.0 Beta Release

« on: 13 Apr 2013, 22:22 »

Another BUG: Whenever I edit a script file and then save the game or run it, the editor tells me that the script was modified by an outside editor. When I click ok to reload, it crashes the Editor.

18

Engine Development / Re: AGS engine Android port

« on: 13 Apr 2013, 16:27 »

I am hoping someone can help clarify a few things about this project. I am new to AGS and only recently learned of this port. I have not had a chance to try using it yet, but my understand is that one manually must place the game in a folder ags on the sd card and install the engine. Is this correct?

Also, when I was looking at this a few days ago I thought I read some discussion about coming up with a method that would allow commercial, standalone releases but I cannot find those posts again. I was wondering if this is being worked on and how this was going to be accomplished (and where that discussion might be in here, I would love to read it).

I am working on both actually. I have AGS Stream (You can find it in the Google Play Store) which I allow it to install the games for you easily. It has a few bugs which I just fixed (It wouldn't download on the SIII, the Nexus Tabs and Transformer Tabs) and I need to implement a game settings option to properly work which I am in the middle of. Also Some users are experiencing issues with the Android port on devices without hardware keys. For instance, they cannot get the Keyboard to be displayed or the menu option for the Function Keys, etc... Once these kinks are worked out, I will add more games. Expect an update to AGS Stream in a couple of weeks.

For the later part, I am also the one working on that. The issue with this latter part is that its not currently integrated into the editor to compile for Android, so I am trying to figure out a way that a user can easily package a game for Android without too much of work going to the Java Side. The next issue is working with OBB Files. But rest assured, I am finding a fix for all of these and will release something in the coming weeks, hopefully. Its just been busy for me lately, so I haven't had a chance to properly work on these things.

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Editor Development / Re: [Suggestion] Logging into AGS server via the editor.

« on: 13 Apr 2013, 16:18 »

I can see some benefit of logging into the AGS Editor. However, I do feel that it is a ways off before we should implement features for something like that in the editor. There are still a few things that should be worked on first. However, along these lines, I had always wished AGS supported a form of GIT or SVN within the editor for proper team working. For instance, if you wanted to start a new game project, you would start it on GitHub and upload the game. After that, you log into the editor and the editor can show you a list of games you currently have access to. Of course, the GitHub Project admin can set up your user account to give you the proper priviledges of what you can do. But once you log into the game, it downloads into the editor along with the changes made to it. You as the developer/team member can provide changes to the git and submit it, while then the game's administrator can approve the changes or not. As it still can be done without AGS, having AGS with an implemented system like this would work wonders and speed up game development.

20

Editor Development / Google Summer of Code

« on: 13 Apr 2013, 16:12 »

http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2013

Has Anyone ever thought or considered if AGS would be good for this? Seems that SCUMMVM is doing it, maybe further enhancements can be made to AGS with a few good students to help out. Just a thought.