Save-Path at AGS-Games

[SvenF]

Hi Folks,
I just found some games produced with AGS (King Quest 2, Maniac Manson Deluxe, etc.)
I discovered that these Games also run when I copy them on a CD, right?

But now is the problem, that the Savegames could not be saved on cd (of course). Is there a way to define the Path for the Samegames???

I want to make an CD for my to Brothers withh some AGS-Adventuregames. Both are not the best Computerusers, so it will be good, if there is a solution for my problem.

Greets
Sven

[Gilbert]

There's one way, if you won't mind doing some manual setup and a bit of hard disk space:
1. make a folder for the game in your HDD
2. copy the main game executable and the setup executable to that HDD folder
3. run the setup programme and set up the game to your preference, a file called acsetup.cfg should be generated
4. open up acsetup.cfg in a text editor (eg. notepad) and add a line:
datadir=[the CD path holding the game's data files]
5. try launching the game and see if it works.




The Beginner's Technical forum is a better place for this sort of questions.

[drizzle]

I'm in a similar situation, and having some difficulties...

Building a system for my brother, and need to seperate the saved games from the game files.

So far, I've tried Maniac Mansion Deluxe, New Adventures of Zak Macracken, and Leisure Suit Larry 2.

What I do is -

Install the game
Run and configure settings
Edit acsetup.cfg, add datadir and datafile - for example
datadir=C:\Program Files\Lucasfan Games\zak2
datafile=zak2.exe
Create a shortcut to zak2.exe on the desktop
Modify the shortcut to set "Start in" to "C:\save\zak2"

Double-clicking the shortcut starts the game, and when I do a SAVE the file is stored in \save\zak2 - Yeah!

However, I'm having a problem with zak2 that makes me wonder if things really *ARE* ok. Specifically, with zak2 I need to explicitly select English in the setup - puts this in cfg file
[Language]
translation=English
(btw - above not documented in "Q63: INFO: Setup parameters in acsetup.cfg" )

However, with the above setup, zak2 isn't finding the english.tra file. If I copy it from the program directory to \save\zak2, then zak2 comes up in the correct language.

So it appears there are still 'things' that the executable expects to find in the 'default directory' rather than in 'datadir' or in the program directory (via parsing the program filespec - I assume this is how it finds acsetup.cfg).

-->What besides the agsave and *.tra files does it expect to find in the 'default directory'? How about the vox files?

fyi - AGS versions, in case that matters
zak2 2.55.560.0
mmd 2.61.747.0


Have you considered the case of a multi-user system, with seperate logins, home directories, "My Documents" folders, etc, where differant users playing an installed game might not want to be sharing each others saved games? What about a 'secure' XP system where users don't have permission to write files into the program installation directory (similar to the CD case)?

For some future release, I hope you will consider adding an 'agsavedir' option - something that will *also* accept a cannonical <My Documents>\subdir (for the multi-user 2K/XP case).

Or is there already an undocumented option for this?
Or perhaps a way to tell the program where to find the *.tra files, or any of the other files that 'datadir' doesn't point at?

Any guidance appreciated...

[Gilbert]

Hmmm, since that 'datadir' parameter was added before the translation files, and few people ever used it (so it's not tested thoroughly), it's possible that some of the dependent file won't be loaded correctly from the datadir, I'll inform Chris about this bug in the Technical forum.

For the personal setting thingie, currently there's no such thing supported, as it's related to multi-user OSes (mainly aimed at XP/2K and above only) and no one suggested about that yet (until now), your suggestion about 'savedir' and cannonical <My document> parameter, sounds like a nice addition, I'll inform Chris about that also.
(You know, it'll be the best if you can register as a forum user and post it in the Technical forum yourself, anyway I'll keep it posted this time).

There's a "sorta" workaround for that at the moment, but can be a bit complicated. You can create a folder with required files (acsetup.cfg with the appropiate parameters set, translated files if needed, etc. and, NO savegame file), you can then copy them to different users' personal file areas (manually or using a script of whatever appropiate), then create shortcuts for each of them which startup folder points to their own save folders (which can be the hard part).

[drizzle]

WOW, quick response... Thanks!

Well, I just tested KQ2VGA with "my setup" and at first glance it seems to be fully functional, including the music and speech vox files. So at least they are covered.

That game has a whole bunch of other files in it's directory though - .dah, .dal,  .da3, .daw, .bah, .bal, .sp, .srf, .mrf, .vf# - so I'm not confident that my limited testing has confirmed that it isn't going to miss something later...

re: translation file - As zak2 seems to be using an older version of the engine the thought crossed my mind that perhaps it was a bug in that version, but I just tried setting mmd to a non-default language and it didn't switch without my copying the .tra file over.

re: 'savedir' - I don't know, it just seems obvious to me that user specific datafiles aren't something you store in a program's installation directory. But then I always partition my disks and periodically wipe/rebuild my system partition, so I've gotten in the habit of segregating "my" stuff (little known tweak: right click on "My Documents", choose Properties - you can move it to another disk/dir)

Sorry about this being in the wrong forum - I did a search, found this and one other post that seemed related, and chose this one because it was more recent and relevant. Perhaps the admin can move the topic to the correct forum.

[Pumaman]

Thanks for pointing this out, the translation files aren't being picked up from the datadir, which is a bug and I'll get it fixed.

KQ2VGA's .dah, .dal, etc files are part of their launcher program and aren't required by AGS itself.

[drizzle]

OK, thanks.

Hope you will also consider my 'agsavedir' proposal...

Related to that, it would be nice if the save filename were derived from the program name, so that a person wouldn't need to create a seperate savedir for each game. Then they could, for example, simply point agsavedir to <My Documents> and not worry about filename collisions between games.

For that matter, this could become an option that your ags-setup program offers them -
they select video, audio, language, and savedir...
(and not worry about editing in datadir/datafile settings)

In the meantime then, for existing games, the way to set up private saves for a multi-user system becomes (substitute appropriate strings for <...> )
--------------------------------------
Install program

Run setup and configure settings

Edit acsetup.cfg, add
datadir=<program location>
datafile=<program executable>

Create user's save directory, for example
<My Documents>\<progname>

Copy the required (if any) .tra file to that directory

Run game with its 'default directory' set to that directory, for example
Create shortcut to <program location>\<program executable>
Ã, with "start in" property set to <My Documents>\<progname>
-------------------------------

There are various automation possibilities (probably necessary for someone building a CD) but the essential elements are above.

And for what it's worth, I must say I'm impressed, both with AGS itself and with many of the games people have created with it. Building this PC for my handicapped brother has been an eye-opener in MANY ways...