Adventure Game Studio

AGS Support => Beginners' Technical Questions => Topic started by: emma_north1 on Wed 15/10/2008 21:22:04

Title: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS [SOLVED]
Post by: emma_north1 on Wed 15/10/2008 21:22:04
OK, before I go any further I want to apologise if there is an answer to this in the forum but I've been looking through the tutorials and forums for over an hour and haven't found what I wanted yet!

What I'm trying to achieve is a first-person point-and-click style game like the old Sierra classics such as Shivers and Phantasmagoria, or like the orginal Myst. However I'm having trouble in the early stages. Obviously for this I wouldn't need to bother with character design or anything, however because I have no character to "walk" anywhere, I'm not sure how to get from room to room or view to view.

I'm using Edges and the room_leaveLeft/Right scripts to try and get the player into the right rooms but when I run and click nothing happens because obviously no character is walking anywhere. What should I do? Has anyone got any tips or instructions for someone like me who is specifically making a first-person point-and-click such as this?

Your help would be greatly appreciated!  :)
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: Anteater on Wed 15/10/2008 21:36:37
Create a dummy character to use as your main (and probably only) character. Then, in every room, make sure that the "show player character" variable is set to false. Then, instead of using leaveLeft/right functions, make all interaction and movement hotspot-based. You can then place hotspots on the sides of the screen for movement, as well as hotspots over areas of interest in each room.
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: emma_north1 on Wed 15/10/2008 21:44:08
OK, the dummy character I can do no problem if it's necessary and I'm fine with setting the show character variable. However my problem lies with the hotspots as there are or will be items in the room edge areas that I will want to allocate actual hotspots to if you get my drift. I had considered this method but is this the only way of doing this effectively?

Thanks for your help so far!
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: Technocrat on Wed 15/10/2008 22:05:16
If you're making a Myst-style game, have you considered using something like this? (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27632.0) Alright, to be honest I've never played Myst, all I know is it's first person.

For items near the edge, you could make them using objects rather than hotspots perhaps?
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: emma_north1 on Wed 15/10/2008 22:11:31
I think hotspots is still more feasible than objects but it is something else to consider, thanks! Still not sure what I should go for though  ???
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: LimpingFish on Wed 15/10/2008 22:23:02
Okay, the answer to this is fairly simple. :)

1. Enable "Hide Player Character" in each room's properties window.
2. Create hotspots (say, a round blob or a rectangle at each side of the room. Or if the exit is a door visible on the screen, draw a hotspot over the door itself) at each point where the player can enter or exit rooms. Set each hotpost to use the "ChangeRoom" command, using the corresponding room names/numbers, under the "Any Click on Hotspot" interaction.
3. When the player clicks on these hotspots they will automatically move between locations/rooms.

This (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acintro3.htm) part of the tutorial covers basic hotspot interactions.

Good luck with your game.
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: emma_north1 on Thu 16/10/2008 00:04:04
OK, in that case, is there any way to use a different curser when these hotspots are triggered (like the old games I described, how they turn into an arrow pointing to the next room when you are hovering over the hotspot?
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: Matti on Thu 16/10/2008 00:29:34
There's a thread dealing with that here (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=35247.0).
Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS
Post by: on Thu 16/10/2008 01:17:19
An interesting alternative could be the Panorama mod Steve wrote a while ago.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27632.0 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27632.0)

Title: Re: Need Help Scripting A First Person Point-and-Click Style Game in AGS [SOLVED]
Post by: emma_north1 on Thu 16/10/2008 22:09:56
Thanks for your help everyone, in the end I used hotspots and just adjusted them to fit around my other hotspots and that's working fine. But I do have a new post with a new issue now!