Adventure Game Studio

Hello folks,

I'd like to proudly present:
A sci-fi Point & Click adventure.

It's the year 2154. The climate catastrophe has happened. Life on earth has become too hot, so humanity has had to move underground. The robots have become autonomous. All work for humans is exclusively provided by the robots' anonymous organization “Cinorq”. The few human rebels that exist don't stand a chance against the robot's superiority.

Chapter 1
Meet Ian, a human that is actively collaborating with the robots and helping them to increase their technological advantage.He's been promised a train ticket to the robots' HQ and a promotion. But very shortly, he's going to change his mind about the robots being on his side. And a tomato incident is going to play an important role.

Ian needs your help.

He needs to to stop the police bots from entering through his front door, and then find a different way than that door to leave the flat and escape.

All new: Chapter 2
Ian has escaped out of his flat by the breadth of a hair. All the bots are on the lookout for him, and he's standing there pantsless â€" literally.

He's cornered behind a hedge on the Recreation Deck and must outwit a gardening robot to get away.
And he still wants to catch his train to the robots' HQ â€" he's a fugitive now and can't enter it normally. so he must find another way.

Help Ian escape!
Without your determined struggle, Ian won't get out of his plight. He will need

• your ingenuity,
• your good eye for visual clues,
• your perseverance,
• and your logical thinking “out of the box” (and yes, boxes of sorts play a role in this adventure, too!).

Download the game here:

• Chapter 1 (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2566-flight-from-the-robots/)
• Chapter 2 (https://loquimur.itch.io/flight-from-the-robots-2#download) (free on itch.io for Linux (untested) and Windows)

something like this:
<image link here>

EDIT:
sorry, this post was supposed to go in this thread (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59449.0)...

Quote from: arj0n on Wed 15/09/2021 17:15:47
something like this:
https://dam1976.home.xs4all.nl/AGS/FotRv3a.png

I get a Page 404 error?

Quote from: fernewelten on Wed 15/09/2021 17:44:18

Quote from: arj0n on Wed 15/09/2021 17:15:47
something like this:
https://dam1976.home.xs4all.nl/AGS/FotRv3a.png

I get a Page 404 error?

Replace the "a" in the filename with a "b", and you get a screenshot. Although I'm not certain it's the one arj0n intended.


In other news, the jam this game was released in ended, and this game ended up far down on the list. Now, I haven't played all the other entries, but judging from which games came out on top, I'll wager the votes went to easy games with little to no problem-solving, but with emphasis on storytelling. It frankly looks like this game was too difficult for the crowd in this jam, and they seem to have given up before making any progress whatsoever. (And some participants are young and seem to have another sense of humour, and end up voting for each other. Oh well.)

Out of the eight entries I've tried so far, this game  is by far the best one. But then my criteria of a game is probably a bit different than the ones competing in a narrative jam. To please that crowd, a hard game would probably have to include something ridiculous like a Walkthrough-mode, where Ian could solve all the problems on his own when the player just clicked on the appropriate hotspot. It would be a little like watching MacGyver. (This is not a serious suggestion, more of a lamentation.)

Quote from: heltenjon on Thu 16/09/2021 09:53:01
To please that crowd, a hard game would probably have to include something ridiculous like a Walkthrough-mode, where Ian could solve all the problems on his own when the player just clicked on the appropriate hotspot. It would be a little like watching MacGyver. (This is not a serious suggestion, more of a lamentation.)

Wait a minute: This might, to the contrary, be An Idea.

All the casual games feature a Hint system: You click on a “Hint hat” or something that is always conveniently located at the left or right bottom screen corner, and then a ray highlights exactly the thing that you need to click on next. Usually the hat needs to “recharge” before it will yield the next hint.

I don't know how they do this exactly, but the kits for casual games probably have something built in that provides that functionality in a convenient way (probably in combination with modules for the dozen minigames that seem to feature in aaaall the casual games aaaall the time).

Now let's suppose we have a separate file with GOALs and DESCRIPTIONs of how to reach them.

• A GOAL would be an identifier that you can choose freely.
• A DESCRIPTION would say:  "In order to reach GOAL, if CONDITIONS are met, you RIGHTCLICK|LEFTCLICK on OBJECT|HOTSPOT|CHARACTER|INVITEM."
• A CONDITION could be any valid AGS expression that only uses goal names and global variables/attributes (e.g., oPitchfork.Clickable)

This should be enough for a plugin to automatically generate a function, called, e.g., "room_ShowHint()", that looks around and sees what is currently true and then calls "HintRightClickObj(Object *)", "HintLeftClickObj(Object *)", "HintRightClickIitem(InventoryItem *)", etc., as the case may be.

The functions "HintRightClickObj()", etc., would need to be provided by the game coder and point out that the user needs to do that respective thing next (by highlighting that thing with a ray on an overlay or something). Example or default code might be provided for that. These functions go into GlobalScript() or some script module.

The Hint hat is on a GUI, and when it is clicked, it dispatches a "CallRoomScript(99)". Each room that uses the plugin would need to have

function on_call(script)
{
    if (script == 99)
        room_ShowHint();
}

at the bottom of the room file, and the generated "room_ShowHint()" function in front of that block of code. (The plugin could see to that.)

As a result, whenever the Hint hat is clicked on, the user would get exact visual feedback on what to do next.

Coders could ask on the start screen whether the player wants "expert" mode or "casual" mode; if they want "expert" mode then the GUI that features the Hint hat is simply made invisible.

Well, if you actually decide to do this with this particular game or another set in the same world, I'd recommend that you switch the hint hat with a loyal robot companion, to keep it consistent. (Perhaps the Thinker?)

I'm not sure ... I have misgivings that if I do offer a variant of a thinking hat, that will still be "too little" in their eyes. Probably because they can't bring themselves to put up with the graphics I can provide.

It's a lost cause. I simply can't cater to the casual game crowd.

Hi fernewelten,

Congrats on the release. It's quite a funny story and I look forward to complete it.

I think you should switch off the annnoying siren after the first announcement.
If you want to keep repeating the announces, please make them silent and display them in the background to avoid interrupting the flow of the game.

The feedback to the Mastemind game seems a little broken. For instance, if you place the same symbol at the same place twice, it can be tagged green then orange.

I stopped playing because I suspected that I was stuck on a bug:

Spoiler

I have the saw and the spork. After the ventilator is removed from the box, it starts turning again and I can't interact with it any more. 

[close]

Quote from: Creamy on Tue 21/09/2021 22:21:37

Spoiler

I have the saw and the spork. After the ventilator is removed from the box, it starts turning again and I can't interact with it any more. 

[close]

Hi Creamy, thanks for the feedback! Concerning the ventilator, I'm not sure at what point you are:

Spoiler

The ventilator has a covering grid that is affixed with two screws. Yes, you can and should unscrew the covering grid using the spork. That's will unmount the covering grid (it'll disappear). However, the rotor beneath the covering grid will continue to turn.

If Ian tries to INTERACT with the ventilator at this point, he should say something about "I want to spare my fingers.". If Ian EXAMINES the ventilator at this point, he'll exclaim that the blades of the turning rotor are razor-sharp; no wonder that had protected the rotor with a covering grid. 

[close]

Is that so far the point you have reached?

Spoiler

So now Ian's next job is to stop the rotor from turning in some way. Ian's fingers won't do it, so perhaps jam something robust into the rotor blades to stop them spinning? You can try the saw but it's too dangerous for this job (but it will come into play later on). 

[close]

Concerning the siren: You're right, it's very annoying. I've already slated an update where the siren will only wail throughout the first announcement. From the second announcement onwards, it'll start at the beginning of the announcement but only wail three times and then stop.

Concerning the mastermind game: I'll look at the code and see whether I can find a bug. What the algorithm should do is the following:

• Let's say the secret combination is 57743 and the guess is 77123
• See what digits are correct in the correct position: The "7" is correct in position #2 and the "3" is correct in position #5.
• Thus award two green lights.
• Ignore the correct digits in the correct position, i.e., temporarily cross them out in the secret combination and in the guess: The rest of the secret combination is 5x74x and the rest of the guess is 7x12x.
• There's another "7" that is part of the guess, but this "7" is in the wrong position. It should be in position #3 but is in position #1.
• Thus award one amber light. Temporarily cross out the "7" in the secret combination and in the guess, yielding 5xx4x and xx12x.
• No further matches can be made.
• As a result: Two green lights, one amber light (the rest are red lights)

When a digit occurs more than once in the secret combination, you can get an amber light and a green light for this digit, as in the example above.

BTW. You have infinite guesses to break the safe code. So here's one way to do it:

Spoiler

First, find out what digits are part of the secret combination. Enter "11111". If a "1" features n times in the solution, this will yield n green lights.
Continue with "22222" and so on until you know what digits are part of the solution.

Now let's assume you know that "1" is part of the solution, but "9" is NOT part of the solution. Enter "19999", "91999", "99199", etc. and find out in exactly what places the "1" needs to be (the respective guesses will yield a green light).
Continue with the next digit that you know is part of the solution, but now you only need to test for the places that you know don't contain a "1".

[close]

Quote from: Creamy on Tue 21/09/2021 22:21:37
The feedback to the Mastemind game seems a little broken. For instance, if you place the same symbol at the same place twice, it can be tagged green then orange.

The placement of the tags doesn't match the placement of the symbols. So if you have two correct symbols, you don't get to know which two symbols are correct right away.

QuoteIs that so far the point you have reached?

I've already removed the rotor:

Spoiler

(https://i.imgur.com/x02iF2B.jpg)

[close]

Weirdly, it's still spining.

QuoteThe placement of the tags doesn't match the placement of the symbols. So if you have two correct symbols, you don't get to know which two symbols are correct right away.

Ooooh, I didn't know that. I suddenly realize that my brothers and I have been playing Mastermind with bad rules as children  :-[  (laugh). My apologies, your code is fine.

Quote from: Creamy on Wed 22/09/2021 21:18:01

QuoteThe placement of the tags doesn't match the placement of the symbols. So if you have two correct symbols, you don't get to know which two symbols are correct right away.

Ooooh, I didn't know that. I suddenly realize that my brothers and I have been playing Mastermind with bad rules as children  :-[  (laugh).

I think we all have.  :-D Even though I don't think it's mentioned in the rules, that variation is a fine way to make Mastermind easier for children or beginners. Any box photo with an example will show that you're not supposed to do that, though.

Found the bug: If you first dismount the rotor, then solve the saw minigame, then the rotor will start turning again after you return from the safe view. I hadn't found this when testing because I always did things the other way round: First get the saw, then dismount the rotor.

So I've issued a bugfix; get the new version via the game database (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2566-flight-from-the-robots/) or directly on itch.io (https://loquimur.itch.io/flight-from-the-robots)

Quote from: heltenjon on Wed 22/09/2021 23:37:07

Quote from: Creamy on Wed 22/09/2021 21:18:01

QuoteThe placement of the tags doesn't match the placement of the symbols. […]

Ooooh, I didn't know that. I suddenly realize that my brothers and I have been playing Mastermind with bad rules as children  :-[  (laugh).

Even though I don't think it's mentioned in the rules, […]

As far as I know, the very very original Mastermind had a board like that:
O O O O  oo
         oo
                   
O O O O  oo
         oo
(and so on.)

The left holes are for the guesses, the right holes for feedback. In this arrangement the assumption doesn't suggest itself that there might be a one-to-one correspondence between guess positions and feedback positions. So this might be the reason that the rules don't state explicitly that there shouldn't be.

The arrangement that we all know today only came later.
O O O O   o o o o
O O O O   o o o o
O O O O   o o o o
(and so on)

Dunno. It makes for a less long board, maybe?

I guess I'm showing my age then, as I'm referring to the "very very original" version.  (laugh) I agree about your point, but we would play like
1 2
3 4
when playing the "easy mode". Perhaps this came naturally to us because we also grew up with physical slider puzzles, which may be the very reason why I _don't_ hate those, like some players apparently do, but think of them as relatively easy.

In this game, the lit up nodes signifying correct placement is starting from the same side all the time, if I recall it correctly. The player ought to be able to deduce that they don't correspond with the peg guesses...which is actually kind of what Creamy did, when I think about it.  (laugh)

Thanks for the savegame, fernewelten. I finally made it to the end.

QuoteFound the bug: If you first dismount the rotor, then solve the saw minigame, then the rotor will start turning again after you return from the safe view. I hadn't found this when testing because I always did things the other way round: First get the saw, then dismount the rotor.

I dismounted the rotor first indeed.

Quote from: heltenjon on Fri 24/09/2021 10:21:27
I guess I'm showing my age then, as I'm referring to the "very very original" version.

Might also be a case of regional versions.

I've once researched "Mastermind" in order to find out whether one was allowed to even implement it. I don't really remember all the details. The game has quite a story by now, but the upshot was, as far as I could gather, that the patents have expired: You may implement the game. The trademarks, on the other hand, have not: You may not call your game, "Mastermind". The original company seems to have sold the game to a large game producer at one time. Different kinds of board have been produced at different times and for different markets. The oldest version, as I understood, was the one with a four-places code and a "square" arrangement for the feedback. Our family had one with a "line" arrangement for feedback. The piece of paper with the rules has gone lost.

Update: "Flight from the robots" has gotten an all-new chapter 2.
Download it here from itch: https://loquimur.itch.io/flight-from-the-robots-2#download

I played through the second chapter. Very interesting, but a bit short. I liked the puzzles. It took me a few minutes until I got

Spoiler

the timing right for jumping onto the trolley

[close]

Looking forward to chapter 3  :cheesy:

Yes, chapter 2 is interesting. I like the way in which you MUST look at areas before a hotspot is revealed. I wonder if more developers could use that idea? The puzzles were damned difficult in the nicest way. When you see a puzzle and wonder "Now what is it I'm looking at, and what does any interaction accomplish?" Finally you conclude the desired outcome and take actions to do it. Certainly its "thinking outside the box"! A very good game.

Between this game and "The Will" I wonder if there is some AGSer out there giving lessons on how to make diabolically hard puzzles?

Yes, very different puzzles

Spoiler

I liked that you had to find out what the objective of the game was, but this part was not too difficult

[close]

Spoiler

Getting the different pieces in the right position was a bit more challenging, but I think the rules were clear once you started

[close]

Spoiler

But it took me of course a few attempts to solve the puzzles. Still possible to do it in a not too long time

[close]

Spoiler

It took me longer to get on the trolley, part of it to wait for an empty trolley and then also to fiddle around with the switches, but I eventually got it

[close]

All in all very refreshing

Quote from: sthomannch on Sun 31/07/2022 12:48:27
Very interesting, but a bit short.

Sorry. It took me a lot of time to get all those state machines interplaying correctly. When I find the time, I'll add some content for the locker room, making Ian work to turn up a hazmat suit. That'd also have to explain how Ian can't turn up an ID card in there. :)

Thanks for the feedback!

Quote from: Wiggy on Tue 02/08/2022 15:03:31
how to make diabolically hard puzzles?

So far, I've used classic puzzle dependency charts (Grumpy Gamer) (https://grumpygamer.com/puzzle_dependency_charts) to construct the riddle sequences. So I start at the end, e.g., Ego needs to be prevented from passing through a door. What might get him stumped? Let's lock the door with a combination lock and let's put shards in front of the door. What might prevent Ego from simply pulling out the shards? What would make it difficult to get at the combination of the lock? …

I often “look around”, as it were, and let myself be inspired by the specific mundane circumstances that I already have. For instance, in “Thinker”,

Spoiler

I already have Ego being a robot without a voice module. How can I get a puzzle out of that? Ego would have to be stumped by a task that can only be done with a voice. A task that requires hollering. And that's how I arrived at the puzzle in the vending machine room.

[close]

It's dicey. I don't want to pose puzzles that are so illogical that they can't be done. OTOH, I don't want to pose puzzles that are insanely easy. I'm not strictly against “chores”. OTOH, I don't want to exhaust the player and give them headaches with overly tedious chores.

I find that hard to get right. I'm still learning and experimenting.

Well done, I enjoyed the game a lot  :smiley:

The procedure you explain in your last post to find riddles seems good to me.

I finally got around to playing this. As usual, challenging puzzles, but not impossible. I liked best the first puzzle, where I had to outmanouver the gardening robot. The code for the door had me stumped for a long while, and when I saw the system, I didn't remember how to calculate such an equation, so I half-brute-forced it. I don't know if I wasn't in the mood for numbers or what, but I didn't enjoy that puzzle as much as the others. The conveyor belt puzzle was also very good - nice implementation of known slider puzzles.

All in all, a very good game. I've come to expect great puzzles from your games, and there must be some fairly advanced coding involved here to make all the contraptions work. I'd be happy to see more of Ian in the future.  (nod)

Quote from: heltenjon on Mon 08/08/2022 03:21:03
The code for the door had me stumped for a long while, and when I saw the system, I didn't remember how to calculate such an equation, so I half-brute-forced it.

Thanks for the feedback!

As concerns the door lock puzzle, I had some concerns myself. But TBH I'm running out of ideas for lock puzzles, so despite some misgivings I put it into the game. The official term is “Chinese Remainders” puzzle. I don't think that Wikipedia does a good job of explaining how to solve it, so I'll put an algo for it here:

Let's say we look for a number that

• yields a remainder of 2 when divided by 5
• yields a remainder of 3 when divided by 7
• and yields a remainder of 5 when divided by 8.

Spoiler

1. Let's take the first remainder first. A great number that will yield a remainder of 2 when divided by 5 is the number 2 itself, so let's take 2 as the starting point.

2. Note that you can add 5 to the starting point as often as you like, the remainder when dividing by 5 won't change (of course). And that's good because that remainder is already perfect and we don't want to spoil that.

3. But each time you add 5, the remainder when dividing by 7 will change. So let's repeatedly add 5 to the starting point until the remainder when dividing by 7 is exactly right. We arrive at 17, let's call that the new starting point. Now the remainder when dividing by 5 is fine, and the remainder when dividing by 7 is fine, too. Let's keep both fine from now on.

4. Note that you can add 35 (or 5 times 7) to the new starting point as often as you like: The remainder when dividing by 5 won't change, and the remainder when dividing by 7 won't change either.

5. But the remainder when dividing by 8 will change each time. So let's add 35 to the new starting point until that remainder is exactly right. We end up with 157.

6. In this case, this number will work and is a solution to the puzzle. However, the keypad for entering the number doesn't have a zero. So what do we do in cases where we end up with a number that contains a zero? In this case, we can add 280 (or 5 times 7 times 8) to it as often as we like, it won't change the remainders when dividing by 5, by 7, or by 8. We'll do that until we arrive at a number that doesn't contain zeros.

[close]

Quote from: fernewelten on Mon 08/08/2022 09:59:19

Quote from: heltenjon on Mon 08/08/2022 03:21:03
The code for the door had me stumped for a long while, and when I saw the system, I didn't remember how to calculate such an equation, so I half-brute-forced it.

As concerns the door lock puzzle, I had some concerns myself. But TBH I'm running out of ideas for lock puzzles, so despite some misgivings I put it into the game. The official term is “Chinese Remainders” puzzle. I don't think that Wikipedia does a good job of explaining how to solve it, so I'll put an algo for it here: (snipped)

The way I solved it:

Spoiler

First I tried to find the system on my own, filling a page with notes...until I discovered that Ian saw it right away. Then I could make three mathematical functions using the descriptions of the three digits. Normally, this could be solved by calculating (but I didn't remember the procedure) or by drawing three graphs and see where they intersect. But I couldn't be bothered to do that, so I found the lowest three digit number that worked for the 7 spot and kept adding 7 to it, skipping the numbers containing a zero. No, I'm not proud, but anything to escape those robots!

[close]

As for lock puzzles...how about revisiting the key in the maze lock you made for a MAGS, but with a more complicated maze? That one always seemed like a good idea to me.

Quote from: heltenjon on Mon 08/08/2022 11:25:56
The way I solved it: (snip)
No, I'm not proud, but anything to escape those robots!

I think your solution is fine. It does the job for problems of this size, and you can even see it as a preliminary version of the “Chinese” solution: The only main thing that the “Chinese” add is that they optimize the brute-force approach more by going about it iteratively instead of doing just one step, as it were. So it's a very good solution considering that you didn't know the approach and re-engineered it.