For something like a sinking ship, is it possible to write a script that, in essence, "floods" every room on board in a synchronous manner? That is, filling the rooms with a water graphic in a specific time-frame and way?
You mean like the Titanic: where each chamber floods one after the other?
I have done a similar thing (The Sacred Tablets of Tibet) and what I did was this:
1: Draw all water graphic objects for each room of the ship.
2: Place water objects underneath the ship.
3: Hide water objects behind a walkbehind.
4: Make all water objects be a bit Transparent (80% perhaps, so that you can see through it.)
4: When the event is called (ie timer or other event) have the water objects move slowly into place one at a time until all water graphics are shown in all rooms on board.
This is a basic way that I have done in the past.
Anything else just ask.
Others may have other ways of doing it.
Sounds viable. I think I'll have a look at that example and see how it goes.
Check out Sudan.. Its near the end.. and one chamber fills with water.
I did a pretty simple flooding room thing in "Submerged - LaSol".
All I used was a single sprite of "water" that I overlayed over the room and moved up as the room was filled with more water. Even the source is available if you want it, check out here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Games.aspx/Detail/1404