scripting... multi PC's

[phact0rri]

Okay I am still new here, and still learning the scripting function for AGS, and partly it might be to early to see if there's a way to do this, but I've yet to see anyone one have a simular function to this one.  So I thought I'd ask and see if anyone has had a simular problem or can suggestion things I can look into in order to get this to work.

I haven't started this project yet as I'm still getting all my designs worked out but I want to give players the option of playing a selection of three diffrent PCs, sort of like Hero Quest where the player could pick between the fighter the wizard and the Thief.  Now I could just create three diffrent versions of the game and have the people download which version they want on who they wanted to play, but I'd like to package it as one game.  So the only way I could come up with doing that is to Maybe come up with an intro GUI interface that promps the player at the start to choose the character and that string would initiate one of three Game files which would allow them to play that particular character.

So I suppose what i'm asking is if anyone has had a simular scripting dilema among running more than one AGS game in one package, or if there's an easier way to go about doing this.  also if anyone would like to come up with a script that could function for this and I'm sure others would probably want to do this at a later date.

any advice, comments, or help would be very helpful.

[Gilbert]

If you make separate games, you can look at the RunAGSGame() script function, that way you can run 3 different AGS games using the same intro.

However, my advice is that if the 3 game"s" share many similarities (rooms, game world, backgrounds, sprites, etc.), you should make ONE single game, and use scripting to provide different reactions when the player is controlling a different PC. As we can have more than one PC in ONE AGS game already, look at SetPlayerCharacter(), etc. functions and related material from the manual for more info.

[phact0rri]

Well partly there is going to be a change in how characters interact with diffrent characters, or at least thats the plan.  As all three selectable PCs will be in the game, only the other two will be NPCs, to the player.  But I'll look under both selections in the manual, and see if I can figure out what will work best for me.

[DinghyDog]

If that's really what you want to do...then you're in for a lot of if/thens. Seriously, your code is going to be massive.

-DD

[phact0rri]

yeah I noticed, my idea is to go through with one character, do the initial design then go in and write for the second and then the third.  This project that I speak of is actually going to be my second project I've decided.  As this project I'm still queing for what people want out of it   my first project is a little smaller in scope and its based on my webcomic so I already got all the intial designs how its gonna look and everything out of the way.  its a prequel story so it'll work good for a first project.  this multicharacter game is gonna be started and will probably be an off an on project cause as you said.. its probably gonna take a while to develop the full thing.  But challenges..

..thats what makes things fun.

[Moresco]

Shouldn't be too hard.  What you'll probably want to do is create the intro like Quest for Glory where the character is presented with the three(or however many) characters to choose from.  

Upon choosing you set the player to that character for example.  Using a different value for each character, you will have to program all different interactions throughout the game for each one.  

It's the same as having all three games seperately but you're not doing that, you doing it all in one.  It's not that complex really, I have done it with RPG's.  

So there you go....as for actual scripting, there's probably more than one way to do it & no way is better than the other.   My advice on designing it for one character, don't.  Design it for all three, plan ahead, and make sure you know how your script/game(by script I mean dialogues etc) is going to flow before you jump in to code it all.  You don't have to, that's just how I'd do it.

Just make sure you use clean code & comment everything, use tons of spacing(whitespace) to make it clean and readable.  That way, you could share it with others later.  Does this help you at all?