Multipart games

[bx83]

I’m creating 3 game parts, through 3 different exe’s. All share the same code/rooms.
Can you do this with save games? Or through progressive parts + save games? Eg.

Part 1, room 1-10
part 2, rooms 1-20
part 3, rooms 1-30
(As opposed to part 1 rooms 1-10, part 2 room 11-20 etc)

Basically, can you do 3 (progressive) exe’s with a progressive save game; or will the different save games be incompatible within the 3 parts?

[Khris]

Adding a single variable renders savegames incompatible, so unless you create your own savegame format, there's no way this will work.
Unless you literally mean the three games share all code and rooms, but how would that work? Why even have parts like that then?

[Crimson Wizard]

AGS save files keep the name of the game which saved them. When engine is told to load a save it tests if current game matches the name in save file, and if not, then it tries to launch that different game.

If you put all 3 games in one folder and set them up to have saves in a one folder too, then when loading a save from another part the engine will close current game, launch another part and continue from there.

That said, you need to weight all factors here, because depending on your particular game, resources you have etc, this may work well, or cause more trouble than good. AGS engine does not handle multiple combined games ideally, this feature has some limitations.

Alternatively you may have 3 absolutely separated games, and pass player progress between them using a custom data file (like Quest for Glory series did, passing character stats, for example), or a password that defines game state by a combination of letters (like some of the older console games did).

[bx83]

So for simplicities sake, can I just have the same game, but 3 different versions; first one starting room 1 and ending with an impassable but at room 10; second one starting room 11 and ending room 20 etc?

So the entire game, compiled 3 different times, with objects missing from the 3 versions which makes it impossible to continue?

But the three games are *exactly the same game*, just with object.visible=false in the first one (and you need the object to continue on to the next part), but then part 2 where it’s object.visible=true, and you can go onward again?

Same game; same variables; different starting room and 1 variable with changed value?

[Khris]

If you have a single project, build it to create an exe file, then simply change a bunch of object's visibility and the starting room of the player (i.e. simply set existing variables to different values), and build again, the savegames of the two exe files will be compatible, yes.

Afaik, if you create three folders and put "My Game.exe" in each one, they will all use the same savegames.

[Crimson Wizard]

bx83, could you tell, what is the purpose of having 3 variants of game here? Initially I thought this is 3 chapters, but judging on your last comment it sounds rather like a demo and full version? If it's the latter, then what I wrote above is probably non applicable.

Of course doing what Khris said is possible, but what bothers me is that you are going to provide a full-sized game download which is only 1/3 passable, idk if that's fair to players.

[bx83]

Well it would be the same games file (same rooms, same objects), but with animations missing till I get them in there.

They are chapters in fact, just that a) I want to release it before the end of time, but b) I haven’t got all the animations and one or two objects from the last room.

[Crimson Wizard]

Well it would be the same games file (same rooms, same objects), but with animations missing till I get them in there.

They are chapters in fact, just that a) I want to release it before the end of time, but b) I haven’t got all the animations and one or two objects from the last room.

If I understand you correctly, we are speaking of patching a game here, rather than 3 separate parts?

If you want to keep old saves, the "rules" on patching AGS game are: don't add new global objects, and don't add new objects to rooms which player could already visit.
Some resources may be added: sprites and audio clips for certain, but IIRC not audio types.

Note that if you have placeholders, you need to put unique sprites in them and overwrite these sprites with different images, but not replace Graphic number in the objects. This is because the Graphic is read from save files when they are restored.

You can add completely new rooms by the way, and old saves will be fine!