I'm no good at putting a game together... what should I do?

[Toefur]

I've been using AGS on and off for years now, and I just can't seem to get any good at it. Now that I am working on a serious project at last, I really feel that I need to do something to change this.

I know practice using the program is good, but I am wondering if there are suggestions for anything else I could do. I really, really [and I mean REALLY] struggle with scripting... so I was thinking maybe if I went away and learned a specific programming language itself [to a certain degree] that I would then be able to apply my knowledge of this to AGS.

Would this be an idea? And if so, what language?

And if not, or either way, is there anything else I can do? Anything to suggest?

[ScottDoom]

Well, I'm also new to scripting. I don't know any computer languages (I barely know HTML!), and I don't seem to be having much problems with scripting so far. All I've made so far is this demo game however.

I read this tutorial, and then started to script. I just thought of what I wanted to do with the script, and I looked through the pre-made functions to see how to do it. If I couldn't figure it out, I asked here.

I haven't gotten into scripting GUIs, and I think that may be the most difficult but I think I'll be able to figure it out.

My advice to you is to just script every situation you can possibly think of in a test game. Don't draw graphics, don't think of a storyline, just script for a while. I don't know if learning a language would really help. Try downloading open-source AGS games and reading through their scripting, and see if that helps.

[Hollister Man]

The main problem with scripting or coding in any language is organization.  Find a way to organize yourself, whether you double space new lines, or tab them in.  (The editor sports a feature that you can select a group of lines and press tab, and voila they all tab to the same spot.)

Also, it could be that you simply don't think logically.  The real benefit of having programming experience is the way you think.  Old programmers ALWAYS count from zero, while newbies kinda wonder what's with that (0 is the first number in many parts of AGS even).  You might want to learn a very simple language like Logo.  I learned this in elementary school, and still use it now and then today.  Microworlds was a newer version of logo, in case you have a problem finding it.

[SilverWizard_OTF]

You know, i do not think that it is too important to learn scripting, for to use AGS. It needs only a little imagination, and you can do almost anything with the interaction editor.

For example, i wanted to a conversation, when the character tells a certain topic, the to change a variable value. This was required scripting. Although, i made something else, to avoid it. A  wrote the dialog script "new-room" (In the dialog editor) and i moved my character to a new room (Black screen). There i set that "first time player enters the screen--> set variable value) (from the interaction editor). Then i set (go to a different room) to return my character to the room that it was when the conversation started. All this proccess wasn't something difficult.

This that i want to say, is that with a little imagination you won't need to use the script.

Of course, if you want to make your game a bit more  smart, you should  learn some basic script function (such as GuiOn/Off, SetCursorMode e.t.c.)

Good luck!

[Ashen]

Like SilverWizard said, you don't actully need to be able to script to use AGS. That said, if you do learn it, there's even more flexibility in what you can do.

Try playing around with the script language to get to know it before you actually try to make anything with it, that's how I learnt. That, and reading old posts in the forums.

As to learning another language first, unless you're likely to use it once you know it, I don't see that it'd have any advantage over just keeping at AGS. However, if you think it'd be easier (maybe because other languages have more support available), the AGS scripting is based on C++, so that might be a good place to start.

[Ozwalled]

First off, I have no game out either. So take this for what it's worth, I guess.

Anyway, these are what I found helped me a lot:

1) Play with the Demo Game and other open souce things, taking a look at the manual here and there. Make some different things happen, like adding in new dialogue, adding a new inventory item (and getting it in the game as a result of doing something), making a door somehere that leads you to a different room, etc... Doing these sorts of things helped build my confidence that, yes, even *I* could make AGS do some things that I wanted it to do. Empowering, I tells ya'. And yeah, I'd also reccomend that you start off heavy with the interation editor, as it gives you easier results quicker than scripting does, at first. You can do a surprising amount of cool stuff with it, acually.

2) Read through each and every part of the manual, from start to finish. ALL OF IT! For each of the different fuctions that you come across, try to think of some way that you'd be able to use it to do something neat in a game (you don't need to come up with an idea for each function, but try to have a few ideas here and there, at least). Try to be creative! Write these ideas down somewhere, even if they seem sort of lame. Once you're done the manual reading and now have a list of ideas, go back to the demo game (or some other open source project, OR even be brave and start your own test game if you like) and start trying to implement ONE OR TWO of those ideas. Getting some of your little ideas to work on your screen can be surprisingly satisfying (I remember feeling all giddy when I got a character to follow my main character across the screen and from room to room). Once you get a couple of things working, just keep it going.

Well, that's pretty much how I started to get into things anyway. Hope it's of some help.

[TerranRich]

Have you tried ANY of the tutorials or other things in the sticky thread in this forum?

[Hollister Man]

My suggestion is to download the unofficial DQ3 demo from www.demoquest.us/dq3demo.zip

The original is now fairly old and gets 'eaten' by the editor if you try to load it.  Things cease to work right, that's part of the reason we started a new version.   After the first intro screens, which are very useful codewise, but probably not easy to understand, everything else is pretty solid.  I added comments as much as I could, but it is just a demo of the finished product.  It might help you along, though.