AGS book?

[rozojc]

Hey there, just had a very basic (stupid?) question: Is there such thing as a book on creating games with AGS? I'm not talking about the manual, but a book that teaches all the process involved in creating a game with AGS, drawing, scripting, etc. etc.. If it doesn't, wouldn't it be a good idea? Sure, you can always look up anything at the manual, or ask in the forums, but I'd sure love to have such a book as "reference"...

Has anybody thought on writing such a book? Maybe as a group project? (writing it between all the good scripters and game makers that work with AGS) ?

[Ishmael]

All neccesary about AGS is in the manual, check critics lounge for drawing tutorials and such... I don't see a need for a book. If I really need a hard reference, I can print out the manual...

[Mats Berglinn]

I find this quite interesting. There's just some trouble with this kind of things. One of them is that we all find differnt kind of ways of scripting or making a puzzle work, so there's just not one way to do them. For the drawing, there are many turtorials on how to draw backgrounds, animations and so forth.

It's an interesting tought though.

[Ubel]

we all find differnt kind of ways of scripting or making a puzzle work, so there's just not one way to do them.

But that would of course be the reason why such a book should ever be done. To include all the different solutions and opinions about different problems.

[Ishmael]

But that would of course be the reason why such a book should ever be done. To include all the different solutions and opinions about different problems.

You'd be re-writing the bible there...

[rozojc]

Food for thought: of course there are a lot of tutorials on drawing, scripting, etc., and of course that it would be a bible, but wouldn't it be nice to have our own bible? Tutorials and the manual are like oral tradition; segmented pieces of information that can have to be read and "personally rated" before using them (you usually read 3 tutorials in doing something before deciding which to use, or which parts of which to use), whereas having a book done by the community, sounds as a decent idea. Maybe something in which a proposal of an index is made, and everybody contributed at writing the chapters, proof reading them, and adding stuff to them. Later we could just go to one of those on line sites where they publish books on demand...

I'd think it's a good idea....

[Scummbuddy]

Things change in the community so much, that an online wikipedia, or the "coming soon" online manual, with user submitted comments and code that follows each of the manual pages, in my opinion would be the best option. I mean, if we had  a book that covered 2.62, it would practically be out of date, and I wouldn't want to be the one that put so much work into something that is now, old. Chris Jones idea is the best, and it will hopefully come soon, now that the newest release is practically done, he'll have time to go to that section of the site.

[TerranRich]

That's an excellent idea, Scummbuddy, an AGS Wiki would be quite awesome.

[GarageGothic]

I think there are plenty of AGS reference and resource sites out there, but reading this suggestion gave me a slightly different idea: Actually I think it would be quite interesting to put together a pdf book with essays and interviews with members from the AGS community. Perhaps a bit like the GTDs but less fragmented, and of course edited and layouted. Instead of the usual "pimp my upcoming game" interviews we see on most sites and zines, it would feature people who HAVE released games talking about their experience and the ideas behind them.

[rozojc]

Actually, I'm now loking both ideas posted Scummbody and GarageGothic. A wikipedia covering everything from AGS where everyone could add comments like "with this function I did this" or "when using X function you have to take into account that..." would be cool. I don't know if anyone has seen the tutorials that exist for Blender, but there's a set of tutorials in which they made an index, and Blender users are filling in the chapters, and then writing comments. Maybe a Wiki similar to this one, and to the user comments in the PHP manual (don't know if you've checked that out) would work out nicely. And yes, GarageGothic's idea on a book with like, well... the "community stuff", with ideas on game design and project management, etc., from all the people who have actually done games with AGS would be cool too.