Technical possibilities and limitations

[DrMartin]

Hello everybody

First, I have downloaded AGS and played around with it a bit, but I haven't started working on any game. Before I do so I'd like to get some inside info from you guys. I've created games more or less seriously for the last eight years, together with a bunch of other guys. AGS looks like a good option to writing an engine of our own. But first I want to know if there are some major technical limitations i AGS? What are the biggest/silliest limitations? Or do you find it completely flexible and configurable? You get the point.
Thanks in advance!

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Martin Gunnarsson

[scotch]

For 2d adventures it's not very limited at all.  For other kinds of games it's very limited.
Biggest limitations on adventures.. I don't know, being able to play a movie as part of a background would be nice for me.  Perhaps some 3d hardware acceleration for high res alpha blended graphics.  These are just minor graphical enhancements.  There are no other things I can think of.

Really I don't think you'll have any problems, as long as you are trying to make a 2d adventure game.

[DrMartin]

Sorry that I wasn't clear about that, but yes, we're making a 2d adventure. If I want a background with some small animations, can I make the background a big static image, and then add the small animations on top of that? Do these animations follow screen scrollings properly?

I know I really should read up on these things...

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Martin Gunnarsson

[GarageGothic]

I know I really should read up on these things...

Yeah, you should

It's perfectly possible to have the background static and add animations as objects, that's what pretty much everyone does. Animating the full background is very limited as you only have five frames to work with, so objects are the way to go. And yes, it looks fine even when scrolling.

[DrMartin]

Thanks a lot for the quick replies, I'll keep an eye on this thread if anybody else has come across some limiting...well....limit, in the system. At least now I know the forums are good!

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Martin Gunnarsson

[Barbarian]

I find AGS powerful and flexible for creating the Adventure kind of game(s) that I want to make.
For a brief outline of some of the main feature of AGS, visit this link:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acfeat.htm

Look around the forums and use the "Search" feature too, go through the various tutorials, and use the AGS built in help-files, and I'm sure you'll find out a lot more info you want to know. It's also a wonderful community here and AGS seems to be well supported.

Best regards,
--- Big Don, the Barbarian.

My AGS game in production -> "Escape From Evergreen Forest (EFEF)"
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=14181.0

[Ishmael]

The only "limiting" thing I see is the character handling, the way the point where they stand is, and thgough this the collosion detection (teh scripting :)

[DrMartin]

Could you explain that a bit?

[Ishmael]

The point where the character actually stands is the middlemost pixel of the bottom row in the sprite, AFAIK. The lowest third of the character sprites is defined as the character's legs, and this method is used for character collosion checking, or so I recall CJ mentioning a long time ago... or maybe it's in the manual.