Where to start with first person point and click games? Yes I mean myst not COD

[Flawed]

I'm new to AGS. I played with it for awhile years ago, but I'll pretty much have to start with beginner tutorials all over again. I know that  first person POINT AND CLICK games are possible in AGS. I've already read about showplayercharacter in a tutorial. I also read in a old post that I should set "Automatically Move Player In Walk Mode to False". That post was 2 years old. Is there anything new I should know? Are there any first person specific tutorials? Are there some key differences I should keep in mind while reading regular tutorials?

I'm about to plunge headlong into AGS tutorials. I'm just looking for a nudge in the right direction.....


p.s. I'm using AGS because it's free. I'm not necessarily looking for high-res panoramic rooms like the later myst games. I just referenced myst in the title because I though it'd be the game that people would recognize

[KamikazeHighland]

The first thing is to create a room using the list at the right, and after that another list should appear under that.  Scroll down and past Properties is Settings, and set ShowPlayerCharacter to False.

You can use characters later, but for now upload your first background and draw Hotspots over ever point of interest, making sure to change which Hotspot you're working on using the dropdown list above your hotspot settings.  Use the lightningbolt button for a list of events and choose which type of event you'd like something to happen.

Try making something small and see how it goes.

[Khris]

It's not that different from creating a third person adventure.
You still have to use player.ChangeRoom(X); to move to another room.

The best way to implement navigation depends on the user interface you want to create.
Is the player going to move with the arrow keys? Or do they rather click doors and exits?

[Flawed]

I'm making a little test game now with 4 or so rooms. For movement, I'm using hotspots on doors and on the edges of the screen atm. However, I might also toying around with using a gui that shows buttons representing available exits and allows the user to click those buttons to travel

[KamikazeHighland]

You can have the cursor change when it's over a hotspot, or, if the doors were separate sprites from the background, you could sprite.Tint the doors a different color.

[Flawed]

You can have the cursor change when it's over a hotspot, or, if the doors were separate sprites from the background, you could sprite.Tint the doors a different color.

I have that in my game right now. I was having trouble changing the cursor back once it left the hotspot. I found an old post about. I think it was Khris who actually posted code to do it. However, the code was waaaay over my head. It might be something I'd use in a real game, but I don't really like the idea of using code I don't even remotely understand in a game that I'm making simply for learning purposes.

Anyway, I have another hotspot just inside(towards the center of the room)  of all my "edge exit" hotspots  and when the cursor goes over that, it changes the cursor back.

[Wyz]

p.s. I'm using AGS because it's free. I'm not necessarily looking for high-res panoramic rooms like the later myst games. I just referenced myst in the title because I though it'd be the game that people would recognize

Just for the record, if you were you should check out this topic: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27632.0

Back on topic:
How do you change the cursor exactly? Your method works, but you can also use Hotspot0 for this, that is for all the places that are not hotspots, erm you get my drift.

[Flawed]

but you can also use Hotspot0 for this, that is for all the places that are not hotspots, erm you get my drift.

Thanks I didn't know that's what Hotspot0 was! That's a much better method. I'm changing the interact cursor to look like the walk cursor when the mouse moves over an "exit" hotspot.

[Eleri]

The first thing is to create a room using the list at the right, and after that another list should appear under that.  Scroll down and past Properties is Settings, and set ShowPlayerCharacter to False.

Is there any way to set this globally? Cause Lazy Coder is Lazy 

[KamikazeHighland]

The first thing is to create a room using the list at the right, and after that another list should appear under that.  Scroll down and past Properties is Settings, and set ShowPlayerCharacter to False.

Is there any way to set this globally? Cause Lazy Coder is Lazy 

I'm not sure.  However, there's not much point because there's probably a lot of other things lazy coder is too lazy for.  8)

If you right-click the room number on the top right list, you can hit 'Create Template from Room..." and never have to copy over any of your code for that type of room! 

[Khris]

Thanks I didn't know that's what Hotspot0 was! That's a much better method. I'm changing the interact cursor to look like the walk cursor when the mouse moves over an "exit" hotspot.

I'm guessing you're doing this on a per-hotspot basis, right?
You can do things like that globally so you don't have to do the same stuff over and over again.

Here's how to do that from an older thread:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41759.msg552792#msg552792

Note that you can simply add another Custom property int to store the room number the exit leads to.

Then you would add some code to on_mouse_click à la:
  if (mouse over exit hotspot) {
    read custom property "to room"
    move player to that room
  }

[Flawed]

Thanks guys. Lots of help. I finished my little test game, and I'm starting to think about what I want to do for my first full length game. I've done some playing around with other game making programs, and it suddenly struck me that point and click style games take more planing then most other game styles. Basically, all of your puzzles items and room have to work together.

So, how do you guys plan your games? I'm seriously about to grab a pen and dig up an old notebook.