AGS Miniature Golf... Is it possible?

Raggit · Mon 16/02/2004 00:54:21

I've done lots of experimenting with AGS and creating none adventure games. But I've never attempted to make an AGS Mini Golf game. Obviously, it would be a massive project.

Mini Golf is about my favorite outdoor game and I'd love to make an AGS version of it. My question for you is, what do you think would be the easiest, most efficient approach to it?

There would have to be a way to code all the speed, physics and stroking systems etc... What do you think?

Mr Jake · Mon 16/02/2004 06:54:50

There should be away, but you might have to code and use a plugin for some parts of it

shbaz · Mon 16/02/2004 09:09:28

If you just want to make the mini-golf game, try blender. It has a built in physics engine, so you would only need to build the golfer and course in 3d, a bit of scripting in Python, and you'd have a decent 3d mini-golf game.

It seems difficult, I know, but there are many tutorials to teach you. Click on the elYsiun link and browse the forums, there are sticky topics with tuts.

Just a thought, it'd be way easier than doing it with AGS I think.

[end blenderpimp]

Kweepa · Mon 16/02/2004 09:19:18

As Jackhammer said, there are probably easier ways of writing a minigolf game.
However, if you are set on writing it in AGS - and why not? it's a challenge, which is why I guess you'd want to do it - the best approach would probably be to

- restrict courses to 45 degree angles (so you can do collision responses with the edges of the course easily)
- draw the whole thing totally top down and use walkable areas and shading to indicate slopes
- use a rotating line aiming system
- use a 2 or 3 mouse click timing system for determining the strength and accuracy of the shot
- use fixed point maths (or a floating point plugin if you want to cheat!) for the ball physics
- add some obstructions as moving objects - by restricting these to 45 degree angles too you can bounce off them easier

Looking forward to it as a minigame in an adventure!

Steve

AGA · Mon 16/02/2004 13:15:05

Ghormak knows about physics in AGS, since he made Moose Wars. Try asking him...

Scummbuddy · Mon 16/02/2004 19:11:28

I'd suggest an ablility like in Outlaw Golf, so that you get 3 preview shots when on the green. do a rawdraw line from the direction theyre facing and the amount of force going...
I like this idea. I would also like the ability to select a lot of well known either game chars from us, or us ourselves.

Raggit · Mon 16/02/2004 19:41:15

I actually didn't consider using actual characters from games or this community.

I was figuring on just having the club and ball on the screen with no other humans or characters. Such as in 3D Ultra MiniGolf.

Right now the greatest challenge is in the physics department. I'll talk to Ghormak like AGA suggested.

I downloaded that Blender program. However, I still would like to do this with AGS.

shbaz · Wed 18/02/2004 01:22:45

Totally go for AGS if that's what you want to do, I was just thinking you may only want the end result, no matter with what program. If that were the case, there are better tools for the job, but AGS can do tons of things because of the scripting capability. I'm sure mini-golf isn't outside of its domain.

Nacho · Wed 18/02/2004 10:16:41

But the possibility to be emotionaly involved with "known" players should be cool! Do you imagine a match between Guybrush and King Graham? wow, I would play it! Larry Vales against Carlson?

I say, go fo it, and include a lot of AGS characters, and AGSeres, if possible...

Darth Mandarb · Wed 18/02/2004 12:20:36

This is hilarious!

I was just thinking last night about trying out a golf game (I was watching Tin Cup on HBO at the time!)

I was thinking it was something I could do ... if I could figure out the physics involved.

Trajectory, angle, path, rate of climb, gravity, power of shot ... so many calculations to do. It would be severely taxing my feeble math skills!

I think it would be awesome to see (as Farlander said) AG characters playing mini-golf against each other. Larry Laffer vs. Roger Wilco ... I can see it now!

Good luck in your endeavor.

~ d

jetxl · Wed 18/02/2004 13:48:30

Hmm. you cant use a character for a ball because you cant change the speed while the character is moving. Its also hard to move and bounce the ball because ags doesnt support floats (floatpoints) and math functions like sin@, cos@, tan.

If someone does make and finish this kind of game, I would like to see the source.

m0ds · Wed 18/02/2004 16:05:53

Did anyone ever play Sierra's 3D mini golf? I remember I had the demo with a mine course and a windmill course, and I found the voices of the players/actors really funny. So, not long after when I was in France I bought the full game, came back, and all the voices were in French and I was very dissapointed.

Anyway, AGS miniature golf would pure rule. Please let me help out anyway I can. I love mini golf.

shbaz · Thu 19/02/2004 01:50:06

I don't think you'd necessarily need sine, cosine, and tangent functions.

Are you planning to do this with an overhead view, or behind the player? Doing it in overhead won't be as hard.

I was thinking you could have the player pick a direction for the ball to go, and a constant (friction) to be subtracted from the ball's speed as it moves. After that, some sort of function to make the ball slow and/or change direction on hills, maybe have a certain point that repels the ball depending on how close it is, and depending on how high the hill. After that, you'd only need to set boundaries and make the hole work right. I'm only a novice programmer, so it'd take me a while to work out exactly how to do these things, but I'm sure it's possible.

Kweepa · Fri 20/02/2004 00:29:39

I put together a little demo using a float plugin I wrote last night.
Use the left and right cursor keys to rotate the aim point, and the up arrow to shoot (hold for power).
http://www.mccrea.demon.co.uk/step/ags/MiniGolf.zip
There's a room script in there if you want to take a look or fiddle around with it.

Cheers,
Steve

Darth Mandarb · Fri 20/02/2004 00:41:25

That is excellent!

The ball continues to roll just a little too long! But other than that I'm thoroughly impressed!

With a slight boost in graphics this has GREAT potential!

Keep it up!

~ d

m0ds · Fri 20/02/2004 13:39:05

Though I haven't managed to get the ball in the hole yet, the system is cool - Steve! I agree that the ball has that "Yahoo pool" feel to it - rolling for a little too long.

I don't know how your float system works, but thinking about it, it's probably along the lines of however hard you set the speed, it then just decreases by one per pixel it moves, or something. Perhaps it would be better to bring the ball to a slighty sharper stop, killing that few pixels of movement it has at the end.

About the "actual" mini-golf game, here is an idea. Firstly, when a proper version is created, please animate the ball. That way it won't just look like a floating circle :p

Also, perhaps it would be possible to do it 3D using AGS. This is of course, just an idea, and not being very advanced with AGS I wouldn't know for sure, but you know how you can set the "size" of a character on walkable areas, perhaps you could use this feature to have the ball move into the "distance".

Or it could just be top down.

None the less, very cool, very exciting. I want more.

Plus, wouldn't it be cool if all the holes were based on AGS games? For example the Kinky Island hole could have two mountains that you have to go round of in or something

And the Pleurghburgh hole could be a city. Or something. Y'know. Themes!

Nacho · Fri 20/02/2004 15:11:54

IÂ´ve managed to make hole in two strokes, ergo, m0ds is dumb

ItÂ´s quite cool actually, specially for a first attempt! I see it actually like the most non-adventure game of the 2004, specially if you agree with some of the advises weÂ´re giving here (I.E. AGS custom game, with AGSers as players and AGS games as holes...)

Great, cool, fantastic!!!

SSH · Fri 20/02/2004 15:39:26

Regarding the rolling for too long of the ball:

The frictional force on the ball causing deceleration is proportional to the force pushing the grss and ball together. Now, as gravity is a constant force while on earth at fixed altitude, it seems that the speed slowing shouldn't make the ball slow down more. However, gravitational force is straight down and the ball is moving sideways, so the actual frictional force is proportional to the tangent of the angle between the gravitational force (constant givena constant ball mass) and the kinetic force (propotional to speed squared) of the ball. At high speeds, the squared speed is much more significant and the angle stays pretty acute, but as the ball slows the forces get to similar magnitudes and frictional force increases.

Does that make sense?

Scummbuddy · Fri 20/02/2004 16:00:07

I really like Mods idea of the themes for different holes.

Ben · Fri 20/02/2004 17:30:34

Heh.. I got it in just one shot. Ergo, Mods and Farlander are both dumb

Anyway, I like the idea of having different themes for each hole. And although top-down is definitely the way to go, it could be made to look more 3d by drawing the courses with perspective, GTA-style.. Or would it be possible to make it isometric, going half the speed vertically?