How about some tutorial topic?

[The Fool]

Hey guys and gals,
would anyone of you consider idea creating "practical tutorial" topic, where we could post and download various "example" games? Something like "this is how to do working beginner game", "this is how I made tun-based combat system" etc. Learning through internet tutorials and reading is great, but I feel this would be more fun and efficient.

If there allready is such place and I missed it, Im sorry

[NickyNyce]

There are densmings videos on Youtube.

How to use AGS part 1 through 45

These videos are very old, but they still do the trick with helping beginners get started.

[The Fool]

Yup, I'm aware of them and they are great, but I still think this topic would be cool.
I remember one existed long time ago in Game Maker forum I used to visit as a kid
and it was great way of sharing information, when someone wanted to share.

[Eric]

There are densmings videos on Youtube.

I haven't watched the YouTube videos, but Densming also did a few chapters of a PDF book that I found extremely helpful as a total beginner.

[Snarky]

I also find it easier to learn by examining example code. Fortunately, there are a number of open-source AGS games, most obviously the Oceanspirit Dennis (OSD) series. Many of these are very basic, and at the same time use various unusual features, so they could work well as example games. (Mighty Pirate is a simple one-room game, while Blades of Passion demonstrates how to do things like voices, first-person perspective, a custom dialog look etc. A number of them have very simple turn-based combat, one is a rhythm game, and Ponch's ambitious entries include non-adventures like strategy games and a kind of RPG.)

There was an "official" demo game way back, but it hasn't been maintained (though there was an effort to update it that never got finished), and probably doesn't even run in the latest version of the engine. (Incidentally, I think it was a mistake to try to create one über-game to teach everything. First of all it meant that the update was never finished, and secondly the source code became larger and larger and harder and harder for newbies to understand. What you want instead is a series of short, simple games that each demonstrate one feature or a few related features. If necessary the demos of more advanced features can extend earlier demo games, but they should exist as separate game projects.)

[The Fool]

wow, brilliant. Thanks a lot!

[RickJ]

RaGG,

A couple of years ago I created a module that would be useful for hosting such tutorials.   I don't remember if the link below is to the latest version;  seems like I lost the latest and greatest to the great bit bucket in the sky.  

Essentially there is a little test GUI that sits at the bottom of the screen.  There are pushbuttons, panel meters, leds, and an event log.   Functions are provided to turn-on and modify values of the pre-defined GUI elements.  The module is designed for experimenting/developing scripts.  Each room is an independent script and can be selected from a drop down list.   Each room can have a help txt file that is displayable in a pop-up window.

I designed the module for my own experiments but always thought it would make a nice vehicle for the kind of tutorials you describe.  Here is a link to the latest version of the module that's online.  Have a look and see what you think.  If there is interest I may be persuaded to clean it up a bit for use as a tutorial vehicle.

Be warned the module was created with an older version of AGS so there are liekly some upgrade issues.

BluBox-T0100-B02