MAGS February '05 - Hotel Hijinks

[Pelican]

My second game, and its another MAGS!


Hotel Hijinks(click to download)

It's a rather short game, with a simple plot, but as you can see, I spent most of my time experimenting with a custom GUI. I find MAGS a good opportunity to improve my skills, so this time around I was making a custom GUI from scratch to improve my scripting skills. I was also trying to improve my character art, with mixed results!

I welcome constructive criticism. Please note however:

-I got a bunch of uni assignments dumped on me in the past week, so I didn't have time to do as much as I liked.
-I spent an awful lot of time scripting that GUI. I was doing it from scratch to improve my scripting. And it's still quite code heavy, so it took far too long typing the darn thing up!
-I am aware that some of the character sprites look better than others. Most of the static ones, are paintovers of Googled images,

Spoiler

excepting the corpse, because I'm just not brave enough to Google images of dead bodies!

[close]

-I haven't bothered with any music, because technically a MAGS game is meant to be made entirely by you, and I don't want to use music I haven't made. However composing is my poorest skill, and is not so easily improved as scripting and art.
-I meant to put some more sounds in, but just got caught up in other things, and before you know it, its the closing date!

Anyway, other than that criticise away!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Nice work!  I really like the custom gui you came up with, it's no frills but very functional and effective.  A couple of things that might improve the overall presentation (subjectively):

1.  Add some code to your gui to clip it to the screen so that it cannot go beyond the right or bottom.

2.  Extend the length of the game by making use of some of the commands on the gui list, the most obvious one would be the sleep in bed command.  Why skip a good opportunity to make the player walk back to their room? .

Overall, nice work.

[lakerz]

I am totally stuck on this game.  I have:

Spoiler

my wallet and the murdered man's business card.  I've searched my room, his room, talked with the receptionist, the barmaid, and the guy in the bar.  I've searched all around as well.  Right after I talked with the guy in the bar, the game said I was ready to go to bed.  Yet when I go back to my room and select go to sleep, it says I can't sleep!  What am I missing?

[close]

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Pelican, I have made some experiments in this sort of GUI - LSL7-styled, actually. Here are some tips from my attempts -

* Make the GUI turn off before the character speaks. Besides looking better, that way the GUI won't be on top of the text (it is, sometimes)
* Like ProgZMax said, make sure it never strays outside the screen
* Change the cursor to a pointer or something, easier to see what we're seletcing
* It would be very good also if the selection moved when the mouse passed over like, like Windows does

I know you've have only a month to do it all PLUS the rest of the game, and that makes it quite an achievement. So much so that I think the game deserves a revamp, honestly. I would very much like to see the GUI bettered in these ways, as well as the art, if you're so unsatisfied with it yourself.

[Problem]

I liked the interface (there are some problems, but they've been mentioned before), and I think the graphics were okay. The walkcycle could be improved, but the rest is good. Your artwork really improved since "constance the barbarian" (which also was a nice game)
The weekest point of the game is its length. It is way too short, even for a MAGS game and it ends too suddenly. I also found some problems with walk behinds in some of the rooms.

All in all, you did a good job in one month. You obviously have some talent, so I'd really like to see a non-mags game by you. Without that time limit, you might do some really good games 

[Pelican]

Thanks for all the encouraging comments.

* Make the GUI turn off before the character speaks. Besides looking better, that way the GUI won't be on top of the text (it is, sometimes)
* Like ProgZMax said, make sure it never strays outside the screen
* Change the cursor to a pointer or something, easier to see what we're seletcing
* It would be very good also if the selection moved when the mouse passed over like, like Windows does

-Silly me, I did actually realise I needed to turn the GUI off, after a selection, but actually had it turning off after the speech. Duh! Easily remeded.
-Not sure how to stop it going outside the screen, but the whole point was to improve my scripting, so I'll see if I can work it out.
-Cursor change, good idea. That should be easy enough.
-You mean some sort of mouse-over animation? I'll see if I can work that out too.

It is way too short, even for a MAGS game and it ends too suddenly. I also found some problems with walk behinds in some of the rooms.

Yep, thats what happens when I leave uni assignments to the last minute. I may not have many lectures but I have a truckload of reading to do! Oh, the walkbehind, at the gift shop? Should just have to shift the baseline - thought I had fixed it...

I do plan on doing a bit of a revamp to this game (I didn't with Constance, because I'm planning a larger game using the MAGS entry as an intro chapter). I want to practise some simple animations (like the Ego actually jumping on the bed ).I'll try to flesh it out a bit, and tidy up the GUI. Don't expect much more of a story, I've got writers block - used up all my inspiration on my assignments. 

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

-Not sure how to stop it going outside the screen, but the whole point was to improve my scripting, so I'll see if I can work it out.

If it helps, a way to do it - though there are probably many others - is to let the GUI go wherever it wants to go, then calculate whether it's offscreen, and if so start a WHILE loop in which you move the GUI one pixel further inside the screen. The result, at least for me, is very satisfying.

-You mean some sort of mouse-over animation? I'll see if I can work that out too.

No, I actually mean the selection. You know, the one that appears on the first item and then jumps to the selected index? Like, if the mouse is over an option, it appears selected (that big white rectangle appears around the text).

[Pelican]

I am totally stuck on this game.Ã,  I have:

Spoiler

my wallet and the murdered man's business card.Ã,  I've searched my room, his room, talked with the receptionist, the barmaid, and the guy in the bar.Ã,  I've searched all around as well.Ã,  Right after I talked with the guy in the bar, the game said I was ready to go to bed.Ã,  Yet when I go back to my room and select go to sleep, it says I can't sleep!Ã,  What am I missing?

[close]

Oh, sorry. When the Ego says that, you should have appeared outside their room. I had it that the Ego automatically goes to bed. Why don't you take a look around and see if anything's different?