Question RE: Demo Game

[Cardician]

Hello all,Ã, 

First let me apologize if this is in the wrong forum, but I'm really not sure where I should post this due to the nature of my question.

I have a humble question to pose to the AGS community regarding the Demo Game. This is the demo game that is available to download along with AGS. I recently discovered AGS myself and learning from example is one of the ways I learn best. Upon looking at the demo, while there was tons of useful info to learn, I also discovered quite a few incomplete portions. In looking at the download page I noticed that the last time the demo was updated was in 2002. Quite out of date, especially considering the drastic changes that have been implemented with the new beta version of AGS. As I'm learning more about scripting with AGS, I realized a really great way to learn might be to actually remake the demo game by finishing the incomplete portions and updating all the script.

My question is this. Would it be beneficial to the AGS community for me to do this and release it? I would love to give back to, from what I've seen so far, such a wonderful community by doing my share to help out. It also seems like it'd be a great way to help other newbies like myself in learning AGS and scripting if the demo were more complete. I ask because the last thing I want to do is step on any toes or cause any problems. Plus for all I know this is already being done or there is something even better out there that I haven't come across. I'm just not up to the point yet of making my own game and thought this might be really helpful to others.

And just so there are no worries, I am employed full time as a computer programmer. So technically speaking I should have the skills to accomplish thisÃ, 

[Ishmael]

It's already at some sort of progress:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=13855.0

[Cardician]

It's already at some sort of progress:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=13855.0

Alright, thank you. Glad to see someone else is (hopefully) working on it. Sorry for the post, I should have done a more thorough search. :

[Ishmael]

No problem. It took me a few searches to find it too

[Scummbuddy]

I'm not upset, either. Any post that ressurects interest and compounds the idea that it needs to be updated and released is okay with me.

[RickJ]

cardician,

I you would like to contribute to the current Demo Quest project let me know and I'll hook you up 

RickJ

[Pumaman]

This is a good point, because with the new AGS 2.7, the current demo game really will be obsolete. Rick, how are things looking with the new demo in its current state? Is it good enough to release it as a 'work in progress', to replace the current festering old demo?

[RickJ]

CJ,

I have been out of the loop for a little while and the new OO stuff has kind of side tracked me more recently.  I'll check in with the group and see what they have and get back to you.  I'll make a commitment to do the grunt work to make this happen.    Can you give me some kind of time frame and minimum requirements as you see it?   I  suppose it shouldn't use any of the deprecated functions and all new OOstuf?? 

[Scummbuddy]

Would you consider releasing it 'as is' and then focus your energy on updating it with the OO?

[Pumaman]

It will needed to be updated to OO at some point, but that's not the priority. I think it's better to do as Scummbuddy says and release it first with the old-style commands, so that we can have a decent demo game to have on the website -- and then, concentrate on OO-ising it later.

What's your view, based on its current state, of when it might be ready for release assuming that no OO work takes place?

[RickJ]

I can start clearing the compile errors this weekend and probably have most of that done before the end of the week.   After that I can enhance the documentation and possibly convert some of the stuff to the new coding style depending upon how much time there is between now and when V2.7 releases.