Hi all! I'm a huge adventure game fan and yet to get started with AGS but looking forward to diving in when I've finished off my current project. I always like trying odd things out with engines and when I saw there's a scripting language it made me wonder if anyone knows any cool ways to do things outside of the normal point and click functionality or could point me to games that do so. Is it possible to have any kind of action elements? I'm guessing you can do timed sections and so on with scripting? If there's already info somewhere on this subject I apologise, but nothing jumped out at me.
Thanks for reading! :smiley:
Yes, you can write platform games (http://crystalshard.net/index.php?g=17) or shoot-em-ups (http://crystalshard.net/index.php?g=14) in AGS, among others. Indeed, we have a yearly award for the best non-adventure game made with AGS.
The AGS scripting language is extensive and flexible. With a little imagination (and a lot of trial and error, no doubt!) I think you could make almost any kind of game. I recently made a non-adventure game (Haunted Castle) based on a traditional style board game. Also, one of my adventure games (Adventure Island) included a simplified platform game and a shooting gallery. These were all point-and-click mouse controlled, but AGS includes procedures for handling key input. Although designed for adventure games, AGS is a great tool for all sorts of things.
What needs to be understood, though, is :
1) You'll need to write your data structures yourself and many graphical functions yourself if you plan to do something "exotic" (example: if you write a platformer, then AGS doesn't offer a "tiles grid" feature, so you'll need to devise a data structure to store the tiles, and to write the function that draws the tiles onto the screen -- it's not too complicated and been done before, you'll find several platformer engines on the forum -- but if you're a complete beginner in programming, you can't).
2) You'll never meet the performance of engines such as Unity. The AGS script and rendering routines are much slower. But that's enough for most uses, especially if you go low-res (320x200).
Oh, other cool examples of non-adventure games are :
- Red Hot Overdrive (an 'Outrun' clone) : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51045.0
- AGS Kart (a 'Mario Kart' clone) : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=45834.msg615552#msg615552
- The art of theft (an arcade/stealth platformer) Really really cool
A couple more:
1213 (Episodes 1 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/664/), 2 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/687/), and 3 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/690/))
TiLTOR - Link (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/788/)
Gladiator Quest - Is an adventure game, but it has one on one gladiatorial fighting sequences in it. Can be found in the OROW 2 zip file (http://arj0n.agsarchives.com/04-OROW%20games%20not%20in%20agsdatabase/OROW%202%20%5b2005-07%5d%20-%20Gladiator%20Quest.zip).
Soren's Quest - Unfinished Pac Man clone *cough*of my own creation*cough*. Can be found in the OROW 4 zip file (http://www.caverider.com/orow4/OROW4.zip).
aaaaaaaand some more:
1st drop - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1291/
Operation: FORKLIFT - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1373/
Space Pool Alpha - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1309/
The Art of Dying - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1746/
AGS Mastermind - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1669/
AGS 180 Darts - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1138/