What's the status of AGS development?

[Ian Moone]

I see the tremendous effort AGS has undergone in recent years and the folks here are super great in helping others in their development efforts. With a few posts I've read that AGS is going open source...can anyone elluminate me on where AGS is going and what risks are there in me continuing to use this platform for game development? I'm not pursuing this as a financial endeavor but generally concerned about the platform being abandoned.

Thanks in advance.

[Dualnames]

The platform isn't being abandoned. First AGS 3.2 being official (or 3.1.2) is a very complete engine and almost entirely bug-free. What is the next step, isn't abandoning the engine, but actually open-sourcing it. The editor has been open-sourced and we already got 3 awesome versions, that were combined to one. Chris Jones is still around, but we all know he won't be here always. I'm excited to say the least.

[bicilotti]

Chris Jones is still around, but we all know he won't be here always. I'm excited to say the least.

:|

[Dualnames]

Chris Jones is still around, but we all know he won't be here always. I'm excited to say the least.

:|

Not about CJ leaving LOL!
I'm excited about the code opening.

If someone has a plan to make CJ a slave to lovelife, forced to work on AGS till he dies, then count me in.

The man has worked for so many years on AGS, heart and soul. You can't expect him to work forever or work on the same rate. But don't let me speak for him.

[bicilotti]

Chris Jones is still around, but we all know he won't be here always.

I thought he was dying.

[Pumaman]

What is the status of AGS development ... that's a good question.

Well, I've been working on it for over 10 years now. Over the last couple of years I've become more and more busy with my real life, and have had less and less time for AGS.

So I thought about it, and realised that I didn't want AGS to just die out because I didn't have enough time to keep improving it any more. So that's why I've decided to start open-sourcing the code, so that other people can start taking on some of the job of fixing and improving AGS. It's only been about 6 weeks since the editor code was released, and already some kind contributors have added several features that I never had time to add myself.

So I'd say that the future looks good. While I still want to be around to direct and review the changes being made, I think it's time for me to step back and let other people to share the development work.

In the past, when people suggested open-sourcing the code, I rejected it because at the time I was making regular updates myself and the overhead of incorporating other people's work would have got in the way. But now that I'm no longer as active, it makes sense to let other people make changes too.

In conclusion, I don't see the move to open-source as the death of AGS; more as the start of a new phase of its life.

I thought he was dying.

If I do die, I want a picture of Pumaman enscribed on my gravestone.

[bicilotti]

I thought he was dying.

If I do die, I want a picture of Pumaman enscribed on my gravestone.

:o I will draw that with my last drop of blood !

[Chicky]

Thanks for clearing that up Chris, i was curious about how things were going. It's almost nostalgic reading a gengen post from you. To think you've brought endless hours of enjoyment to literally millions of peoples lives, asking nothing in return. You sir have truly contributed to this world.

[Snake]

To think you've brought endless hours of enjoyment to literally millions of peoples lives, asking nothing in return. You sir have truly contributed to this world.

That would make a great toast.

*Snake raises glass

[Dualnames]

*Dualnames raises glass

[theo]

AGS excels at doing what it's built for, however I too believe it would slowly kill off the community if you were to just suddenly stop development on it. Going open source is a very brave and humble thing to do and I'm certain it lies in the community's best interest.

[Guybrush Nosehair]

If AGS goes open souce, think about all the platforms it can be ported to!

[deadsuperhero]

If AGS goes open souce, think about all the platforms it can be ported to!

Such as the Amiga. 

Failing that, I'd love me some native Linux action. A member here managed to build it with Mono in MonoDevelop, but it required some hackery.

I'd love to see native interfaces come out for the respective platforms they're built on.

[dreammaster]

If AGS goes open souce, think about all the platforms it can be ported to!

Not to mention that we'll be able to port it to ScummVM, and finally dispense with the people who keep asking whether it can integrated. 

[Guybrush Nosehair]

If AGS goes open souce, think about all the platforms it can be ported to!

Not to mention that we'll be able to port it to ScummVM, and finally dispense with the people who keep asking whether it can integrated. 

"Those people" are mostly me  . In fact, if you look at their forums right now, you'd see that I started a thread about AGS going open source. The truth is that this could be the greatest thing to happen to ScummVm in years!

[dreammaster]

"Those people" are mostly me  . In fact, if you look at their forums right now, you'd see that I started a thread about AGS going open source. The truth is that this could be the greatest thing to happen to ScummVm in years!

I dunno. The added support for Sierra SCI games would probably still top it. 

[deadsuperhero]

I dunno. The added support for Sierra SCI games would probably still top it. 

God, I know. Being able to play most of the VGA games with the emulated Sound Blaster audio is nothing short of fantastic.

But being able to launch a lot of the AGS-based Sierra fangames would be super super cool as well.

[Guybrush Nosehair]

"Those people" are mostly me  . In fact, if you look at their forums right now, you'd see that I started a thread about AGS going open source. The truth is that this could be the greatest thing to happen to ScummVm in years!

I dunno. The added support for Sierra SCI games would probably still top it. 

It's embarrassing to admit this, but I've never really played the Sierra games (although I own quite a few of them). I could never stand the text parsers, and I HATED the fact that you could die. For these reasons, I always thought that LucasArts was king of adventure gaming. Anyway, I've never actually really played an AGS game (only some Indiana Jones fan demos and a few minutes of several other games), but I check these forums on a regular basis to check up on the progress of certain games. If I could play AGS games on the Dreamcast, I'd probably discover hundreds of gems. I can't contain my excitement!

[Squinky]

Thanks for clearing that up Chris, i was curious about how things were going. It's almost nostalgic reading a gengen post from you. To think you've brought endless hours of enjoyment to literally millions of peoples lives, asking nothing in return. You sir have truly contributed to this world.

Agreed.

[timofonic]

Hello.

Any news about this? Can the main AGS dev explain the AGS development plans further?

It could be nice to make AGS runtime open and multiplatform, so more people can enjoy the games on different platforms like other operating systems or non-computers like consoles and cell phones.

Regards.