Big Blue Infinity Cup!

[Akatosh]

This is more a nice thought-play, but...

I lately digged out BG2 of a big pile o' trash ['Jagged Alliance 1', 'Dungeon Keeper', ... ] and whilst browsing the web for some nice mods, I noticed something... it's the expression 'Infinity Engine'. The point is, this engine is used for a sure lot o' Bioware games.
A strange thought made itself up in my mind... it's a huge lot o' work, but I'm kinda sure it's possible to do an Infinity-style game with the ags!

How?? you may now ask. Well, the perspective is isometrical - 2D, that is. The "rooms"'d be kinda friggin' huge, but I think one could manage that in a resolution like 800x600. The characters movement won't be as smooth as in the originals - even with diagonal loops - but you can't quite have everything.

The AGS-> RPG part is not much of a problem (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=13649.180) and with the help of the CCS plugin, you could have some scripting. The GUI concept is a non-issue (already shown), and some inventory management won't be too hard to make.

Who is with me?

[Privateer Puddin']

Isometric can't be done very well in ags afaik, because of baselines

[charliechuck]

This is what I originally wanted to create, although over time I've limited the battles to a seperate room for ease of coding(although it's not essential for the"engine" i'veÃ,  created if you can call it that!) and the walking about with other characters always following is causing me problems. There's another topic somewhere in these forums on isometric, and the baselines are a problem especially with fences, gates etc. Clever use of scenery and walkable areas would be needed to get round this.

The AGS-> RPG part is not much of a problem

I've done nearly 4000 lines of code now, and I've only got 2 spell and item effects! although i do agree the actual coding is not that difficult using structs if you try and keep it organised.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, you could do isometric in AGS as long as you were prepared to script a good portion of it, but using a shovel as a hammer, while possible, isn't a great idea.

[monkey0506]

using a shovel as a hammer, while possible, isn't a great idea.

No no...you mean, "using a hammer as a shovel".

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

No, I mean using a shovel as a hammer.  I've seen shovels break when used in this fashion, ergo, don't do it!

[Akatosh]

They don't break if you hold them in the right way... near the point you use for smashing, that is

And anyway, instead of drawing baselines, you *could* use objects and regions instead... y'know, with object[8].SetTransparency(80); or such...

And "hard hard work" doesn't mean it's impossible - like with the shovel. If it breaks, keep using the bigger half.

[Akatosh]

Shall I do something like a tech demo? Would you then continue talking to poor me?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Everyone likes a tech demo. If you can do one, go right ahead. It's always good practice, anyway.

[Radiant]

I'm sure this is possible in AGS, but given the amount of scripting it would probably be easier (and more efficient, and less quirky) to do the same amount of scripting in Visual C++ or likewise.

[Fabiano]

as charliechuck, I'm doing the same thing. I made the inventory interactions (char to char, equips, buy, sell) like the Infinity engine, some problems, but working on it. In the same way i'm doing the battles in other room, but didnt coded anything yet. The baseline problem, i worked out using walkable areas.

IMHO, with lots of work, you can do it. some stuff you cant, other you can solve. If I can help on anything, count me in.

[SSH]

I've used a sledgehammer as a shovel, and it can be quite good for breaking up hard earth.

[BunnyMilk]

I've thought about fiddling with an isometric game but not nearly on the scale of BG2 or anything like that. I was thinking more along the lines of an isometric style of graphics but I quickly found out this is one of the hardest things I could have tried.

The chances of you getting very far with this at all are pretty slim I think. It's a task on such a huge scale and I am pretty sure you alone will never pull it off but go right ahead and prove me wrong and I'll be pretty impressed.

[ciborium]

About the friggin' huge ISO backrounds, I seem to remember reading in the manual something about a vertical limit on backgrounds (something like twice the number of pixels as the vertical resolution.)

[Akatosh]

//this code occours when the player walks off a screen edge
TintScreen(0,0,1);
player.ChangeRoom(xyz);

//and then, in every room, on player enters room
Tint Screen(0,0,0);

They won't notice the room change due to a "bug" in AGS (no fade in/out with tinted screen).
And I'm gonna do kinda a BG2-first-level clone as a tech demo. This could take a few/many weeks/months, but you *will* hear about me! AHAHAHA!

/note: Checking the limits, the only problem I notice is the limited number of dialogs. 30? Not more? Hm... we'll have to trickster.

/note note: So you say it's possible? Friggin' huge amount of work, but possible?

[Ashen]

I seem to remember reading in the manual something about a vertical limit on backgrounds

That's in the BFAQ.

1,400 or 2,800 height limit (depending on whether you're using 320x2*0 or 640x4*0 res), and no width limit that I'm aware of.

Other limits are mentioned in the manual. It's a limit of 30 options per dialog, not 30 dialogs. The Dialog limit is 500 - which may still require a bit of trickstering (although I can't see why), but nowhere near as much.

//and then, in every room, on player enters room
Tint Screen(0,0,1);

You may already be doing this, but you might be able use the on_event function to save having to add that to each Room Script. There's only a eEventEnterRoomBeforeFadein event, but I think it still works, even if you don't SEE the fadein.

[Akatosh]

K, so with 500 dialogs, this should be a non-issue. As this won't get a 1:1 remake of BG2.

I've already started working, declaring structs, arrays, more structs, thinking of a spellcastin' system, reading about the AD&D system, imitating the Baldur's Gate 2 - GUI (just with an additional status bar)...

The game will run 800x600 resolution.

[Fabiano]

I'm waiting to see it done, man. 

How youll use the dialog system? AGS standart or try something like BG?

[Akatosh]

I'm gonna *try* to implent something like the BG2 system, but I've already a LOT of work with this, so the first tech demo will most probably still use the AGS speech style.

I'm using structures to carry the statistics of both party members and spells.

The system the game uses is AD&D, in a somewhat simpler form than BG2 did.

A first screenshot: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a23/FAMILIAR_QUEST/scrnshot.jpg
There, we're seeing Minsc staring at his clone, probably wondering why he's both looking like a cleric and using the cleric bar  . All GUIs but the top statusbar taken from Baldurs Gate.

Current problem

I want to use a different inventory for the spells than for normal items. I've tried, but the track thing somehow doesn't work, neither does the give-the-spells-to-a-dummy-character-and-make-him-the-player-character-for-a-split-second-or-such thing. Next, I'm gonna try to make a special guy for it, with the buttons showed determining on the value of the spell available[50, 5, 1] three-dimensional array (if ags features stuff like that), with the first number determining the specified spell, the second the party character, the third wheter it's priest or mage

[Fabiano]

I dont tried yet, but i guess you can make a custom inventory , that only show specific itens, like, with proprieties (Arcane Spell, Cleric Spell, Item), so you can have 3 inventories, each one showing one item subtype.