Come read my McCarthy Chronicles devlog.

Calin Leafshade · Wed 29/05/2013 14:38:33

I've started a devlog, chronicling my progress in rebooting the McCarthy series. I'm going to write about challenges of making an adventure game in AGS using the Lua plugin. I'm going to mostly stick with technical stuff and how to structure a game in Lua rather than design but i'm sure some of that will seep in too.

http://themccarthychronicles.tumblr.com/

Tramponline · Wed 29/05/2013 15:01:41

FINALLY! Really an interesting read and great to learn more about lua on the way.
I'll definitely be frequenting that blog of yours from time to time.

...on the other hand, why are you here posting that stuff, get back to making that game series happen already!!

Spoiler

Nah, seriously awesome news, Calin!

[close]

cianty · Wed 29/05/2013 21:25:32

That is really cool! I've been thinking of the McCarthy Chronicles just a couple of days ago, wondering how progress was. Good to see things are still going. Plus I love some tech reading.

Mati256 · Wed 29/05/2013 23:04:10

These are great news! Just yesterday I was about to ask you what had happened to this series and their awesome lamps!

Fitz · Thu 30/05/2013 09:03:32

Ohhh, I'm definitely going to follow this one! Lua sounds great. I saw what it could do in Barely Floating dev vlog - MIND BLOWN! Modifying the scripts and testing them on the go sounds like heaven - because hell knows how many times I had to speed-run through Gray after adding one teeny tiny thing (e.g. a sound file, even!). So I'll definitely want to give Lua a try with my upcoming project.

Calin Leafshade · Thu 06/06/2013 20:56:52

Two more posts to the devlog and I've decided to move it to a wordpress since it has comment support and stuff so questions can be asked and so forth:

http://www.themccarthychronicles.co.uk/devlog/

These two posts focus on the event system we're going to be using.

Let me know if I'm going too fast or I'm not explaining things well enough or whatever.

selmiak · Thu 06/06/2013 21:31:35

oh, you use lua. Is there LUA support on AGS

Mati256 · Thu 06/06/2013 23:18:22

I tried that template for my blog but just couldn't stand the words not aligning with the lines.

Secret Fawful · Thu 06/06/2013 23:47:32

I remember when Ron Gilbert shat all over Lua on his Twitter as a useful language. Made me seriously question its merits.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 07/06/2013 00:26:23

I think I can argue pretty well that Lua is especially useful for adventure games. Adventure games are data driven experiences and Lua deals with data structures very well I think. Or at least better than AGS Script does.

Ryan Timothy B · Fri 07/06/2013 05:06:02

Ugh. This is the very reason I haven't moved to LUA yet (even though I completely dislike AGS script), I can't stand the "begin" "end" "then" "do" etc, blah! It's so redundant it makes my head hurt.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 07/06/2013 05:52:32

I felt exactly the same way but honestly, you forget about it very quickly.

Lua was designed as a scripting language for non-coders and designers so it's designed to look less intimidating and more like English.
It would not be my first choice as a language to use but it's still miles better than AGS Script.

Armageddon · Fri 07/06/2013 06:04:58

I should learn lua, and then learn to make an adventure game interpreter like SCUMM with Love2D.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 07/06/2013 07:29:52

Love2D would be an excellent choice for an adventure game and I was very close to choosing it for McCarthy but I decided against it due to phone support.

Armageddon · Fri 07/06/2013 07:46:35

Love2D is ready made for Windows, Mac, and Linux though I thought? Shouldn't be to hard to port to iOS or Android.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 07/06/2013 08:07:18

I'm using Love2D for my current main project and I think there is an unstable android port but no iOS port.

It shouldn't be too difficult to port but it hasnt been done yet.

ThreeOhFour · Fri 07/06/2013 15:13:52

Quote from: Secret Fawful on Thu 06/06/2013 23:47:32
I remember when Ron Gilbert shat all over Lua on his Twitter as a useful language. Made me seriously question its merits.

I never saw Gilbert provide anything other than his say so about this. The fact that LucasArts moved from his beloved scumm onto lua based code for grime - and that Schafer continued to use lua on projects like Brutal Legend makes his claims that scumm was far more amazing than lua seem quite petty. In addition, look at all the games made using lua - big, great, complex games. Allow these to speak for lua's usefulness rather than the words of a single person, I would say.

Anian · Fri 07/06/2013 15:23:31

Since you mention Love2d, how hard it is to make an adventure game in it? By "adventure game" I mean with inventory, hotspots, dialog trees, sprite animation and scaling, is it all hard to implement? I've been looking over some tutorials and trying some things, but I haven't seen people doing them in Love2d, they make retro rpg and platformer stuff mostly.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 07/06/2013 15:56:26

I made half an adventure game engine and it took me about half a week or so. I'll let you do the math on that.

Love2D is *just* a framework really. It can play sounds, draw pictures and handle input but thats all so it's certainly not as easy as a dedicated adventure game engine.

But if you think about about it, adventure games are very simple. Once you have a room system and a character system you are like 75% there.
The benefits over AGS are very high though if you want to make a high res, graphics heavy game though: Hadware acceleration, different blending modes, subpixel accuracy, resolution independance and more.

Crimson Wizard · Fri 07/06/2013 18:29:30

So, is it any worth to continue working on AGS? I am spending time on it, and begin thinking it might be all in vain.