AGS Beginners Guide

Nickydude · Fri 02/01/2009 13:01:06

I've started compiling a small guide (mainly to help me) but thought it might be of interest to other AGS users. it's in .pdf format. if anybody wants to add anything (FAQ, tutorial, quick tip) or there's something not right, please email me at andy(@)madladdesigns.co.uk (remove brackets) and I'll add / change / delete as appropriate. Hopefully it will turn into a full guide which will help beginners and veterans alike.

Beginnerâ€™s Guide to Adventure Game Studio

Gilbert · Fri 02/01/2009 13:15:38

Nice job!

This can be useful to newbies if it's updated constantly.

Nickydude · Fri 02/01/2009 13:35:13

Thanks, I also created another guide for a different game maker called FPS Creator and it became official! So I do know what I'm doing. lol!

The OFFICIAL Community Guide to FPSC!

limeTree · Fri 02/01/2009 13:46:56

I agree.
If it was constantly updated with common questions from
forum,there would be less of the same ones.
The file,if it gets bigger might even be included in the ags program help!
I love this idea.

Dualnames · Fri 02/01/2009 15:15:40

Not to sound ungrateful and jealous and all, but wah, I had this idea for the last four weeks. There's a fact for that proving i did(check Ghost's blog). Good to know you decided to work on it. Godd job. I'd love to help out, if you need any helping. Good luck otherwise.

Gribbler · Fri 02/01/2009 16:54:20

Nice job! Anyone cares to do a guide regarding simple LucasArts GUI? (with fewer commands)

Dualnames · Fri 02/01/2009 17:02:27

I even made a module handling 3 control methods(sierra,lucas,bass)

Nickydude · Fri 02/01/2009 17:32:40

@Dualnames: Sorry, I didn't know you were doing one also. Anything in mine you can have, are you still doing this as it seems silly to have two guides? If so I stop mine.

@Gribbler: ANY contributions from would be most welcome.

Pumaman · Fri 02/01/2009 18:11:45

Good work

We've had various FAQ's in the past but invariably they gradually go out of date as new versions of AGS come along.

One thing about this -- the suggested method for changing the character's speech colour seems a bit convoluted compared to just changing the "SpeechColor" property for the character in the editor. While the suggested solution is fine for changing the colour mid-game, it seems overly-complicated for setting the initial speech colour.

Dualnames · Fri 02/01/2009 18:15:31

Well, no man don't stop yours. I said i had this idea and posted about in some blogs and well, you came up with it too. That's good. Don't stop yours. Mind if I contribute?

Edit; My idea was to take all of the questions ever posted to the forums. Process them, label them and make them into a blog. Ever seen how easy it is to find something in a blog with labels? I was about to name the whole project as the Hitchhikers Guide to AGS, anyway pm me or enter the stickam room if you want a hand or a partner on this.

Ghost · Fri 02/01/2009 18:31:31

A beginner's guide can well be a team effort, lads

It's the newcomers who'll benefit, not the ones who compile it. As they say: Those who make the happy ends, they don't get'em.

Nickydude · Fri 02/01/2009 19:02:57

@Pumana: Didn't even see that! I've now corrected it, thanks.

If anybody sends me anything; tutorials, hints, tips, etc, then that will be accredited to whoever sent it. Check out my other guide (a few posts up) to see how that was put together.

Dualnames · Fri 02/01/2009 19:09:17

Ok, then I'm taking the liberty of creating this blog. Not as a leader, but as a creator, anyone who cares to join might as well do.

www.guidetoags.blogspot.com

I'm updating this as we speak.

Nickydude · Fri 02/01/2009 23:00:33

The guide has been updated.

Nickydude · Mon 05/01/2009 19:29:09

Guide has been updated with a dialog tutorial. If I've got things wrong please tell me so I can correct it. Thanks

Gribbler · Tue 06/01/2009 11:14:58

Nice work, very useful guide. Keep up the good work! I hope you'll be updating it constantly:)

Khris · Tue 06/01/2009 14:59:52

Nice work, but like I mentioned in the other thread, the "best" way to make a hotspot talk is a) use a character instead whose sprite is e.g. an intercom, or b) make the character not clickable.
Doing it with a pixel-sized character might cause strange results. (Although the odds are small.)

Say someone uses a Broken Sword-like interface, and the interaction cursor at the intercom suddenly turns into a mouth at a single pixel. Plus, clicking it does nothing.

Nickydude · Tue 06/01/2009 15:07:37

I was wanting to get away from using a character altogether Khris.

I'm using an irregular shaped hotspot and I didn't want to make a copy of the hotspot background, turn it into a character then import that back in, if I decided to change the hotspot I'd have to do that all over again. I will make the pixel clickable though, just in case.

Khris · Tue 06/01/2009 16:06:11

Not-clickable, I hope

It's not better by itself to get away from using a character. There are templates where it's not even possible to talk to something that isn't a character.

In any case, and I know this really sounds condescending, sorry, but a beginner who doesn't listen to good advice isn't the ideal person to put together a beginner's guide IMO.

There's also the Beginner's FAQ, so you're already reinventing the wheel anyway.
Why don't you add really common questions to the existing FAQ instead?

Nickydude · Tue 06/01/2009 17:08:00

Yeah, not-clickable, oops

QuoteIn any case, and I know this really sounds condescending, sorry, but a beginner who doesn't listen to good advice isn't the ideal person to put together a beginner's guide IMO.

This 'guide' was really for my own help instead of asking the same questions over and over, also I like to print and read as I'm not always at the computer but have time to read. The other guide I made started out exactly the same and I got a lot of things wrong, but it was guys like you that kept me right. I took over 2 years of adding and tweaking before the creators of the program made it 'official'. I've got a long way to go.