[Discussion] Feasibility of AGS native web runtime

[Calin Leafshade]

flash has the very serious problem of not being able to catch right clicks.. i guess you could emulate it with ctrl-click or something.

[Denzil Quixode]

Yeah, that is a problem that would need to be overcome on a game-by-game basis. Flash also won't let you reposition the mouse or restrict it to a section of the screen, although thankfully those AGS features are rarely used. (Also, personally I stop normal HTML/JS pages from overriding the right-click context menu behaviour too, with the advanced JS settings in Firefox, because of crappy sites that abused it to pop up "DON'T STEAL FROM ME!!!", so for me HTML5 would have the same problem...)

One cool thing that Flash can do: since version 10, it is capable of dynamic audio generation. What that means is that Flash programs can support music formats that weren't built in, like .MOD:

http://www.photonstorm.com/flod (pure-Flash .MOD player)

I've also seen a work-in-progress one for .XM which was already close to completion. Because of these I'm sure a .MIDI one would be possible too, although I haven't found one yet.

[Wyz]

The right click issue is a pain but the rest looks splendid!
I'd be very interested in a web-browser port, either Flash or combination of html5 or JavaScript, as long as it works I think HTML5 also has a lot of potential, but is yet to mature, so maybe in the future. JavaScript would be a lot of work I guess.

[subspark]

Hey that looks pretty cool Denzil!

On a semi-related note, I wonder if anyone's working with porting to Silverlight?

Sparky.

[Calin Leafshade]

XAGE is silverlight compatible.

[Clarvalon]

XAGE is silverlight compatible.

As of a few minutes ago, XAGE now runs natively on Linux too:



Coming Soon:  AGS games, playable on a microwave near you.

[Dualnames]

That reminds me i should send you the stablest of versions of HHGTG. But I always forget it.

[subspark]

Nice work peoples!! Wow we're really starting to branch AGS out now aren't we!

XAGE is silverlight compatible.

Thats right I forgot.

Coolies.

[xenogia]

XAGE is silverlight compatible.

As of a few minutes ago, XAGE now runs natively on Linux too:



Coming Soon:  AGS games, playable on a microwave near you.

How far you into completing the engine? I would love to use this.

[Clarvalon]

Bearing in mind that I stated XAGE was 70% complete back in 2008, it's fair to say that providing workable estimates is not my forté.  I have a bad habit of adding new functionality and new platforms rather than focusing on polish and regular releases (my SpecialLadyFriend rather sardonically accused me of planning to add support for unicorns).  Plus I have young, growing family and other burdens commitments so I'm a bit like Vince Twelve but without the chronic insomnia.

Life story aside, the engine is stilll undergoing some large changes in terms of handling interface.  I'm using Ben's ! to help me iron out a few issues before returning to Time Gentlemen, Please.  XAGE will be a lot closer to v1.0 after I'm done with those.

[Joseph DiPerla]

So Clar, from what I understand, XAGE is its own Game engine, yet you can convert AGS Games to XAGE and play it on several systems?

[Clarvalon]

Yep, that's right.

[Denzil Quixode]

I've started my own JavaScript library (MIT License) for bitmap mask-based path finding which might be a useful component to anyone interested in doing a point and click adventure game, or game engine, in JavaScript/HTML5.

Here is a simple demo (should work in recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera):

http://mbpf.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/js/test/mbpf-html5-test-simple.html

[subspark]

Hey! Neato pathfinding. 

Sparky.

[limbo]

Incidently, have you talked to the people behind sarien.net? They have somehow brought the old Sierra games, like Space Quest, Police Quest and King's Quest to the web. These games are not built in AGS, of course, but the functionality requested is almost the same. Unfortunately the games are still buggy, I haven't been able to access the inventory, for example, but it's there. As far as I can tell (http://sarien.net/about), there is still a lot of manual work to do to convert a game, but maybe they have some ideas about what not to do.

One neat thing is game save, which is solved by asking the user to bookmark the saved page, the url of which has a special hash added to it when requesting a save, like "http://sarien.net/spacequest2#fDExNCw1MiwwLDAsMHwwLDUsMSw... "

Another thing is the multiplayer functionality, however limited to online chat with the other players in the room at the time.

Not a lot has been covered concerning that project over here, but a search for "sarien" on the forums givs this hit: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37556.0

[benco]

RickJ On HTML5:
HTML5 is VERY powerful indeed. I have very little doubt it could be used as a SCUMM interpreter or a platform for our AGS games.

Actually, there is already someone working on a SCUMM interpreter in JS (mostly based on the ScummVM code), proving it's feasible - I tested it and basically, it works

https://github.com/mutle/jsscummvm

[RickJ]

Just found a new open source mobile development framework but haven't had a chance to check it out yet.  It looks promising and may be relevant to this thread.  Thought I'd share.

http://www.phonegap.com/

[subspark]

Also for those interested in flash, right-click was intercepted via AS3 a fair few years back.
Go splat your rat over here:
http://www.uza.lt/rightclick/