Visionaire vs AGS question

Knox · Sat 01/08/2009 17:18:15

Hi,

I hope this is the right place to ask, but Ive recently checked out Visionaire, and I dont see why it would intice someone to change from AGS other then 2 things...higher resolutions, and widescreen support (as in, I think it the engine detects the screen size and automatically places black bands on top or sides to adjust for widescreen).

Other than that, in your opinion...is it worth it to try to learn it, and eventually use it? Ive found so far AGS quicker and easier to use, and the community seems better...there is also way more documentation, even some youtube tutorials.

Im in the stage of choosing an engine and its really hard to decide what features are more important. I dont need 3d, Im doing the game at 1024x768...but there will be lots of video (cutscenes). I do find it annoying though right now when I run the game fullscreen it gets stretch out of whack, looking "fat" cause its filling the widescreen...

However, Ive heard praises for Visionaire thats its "better", but I dont see how, exactly. I doubt anyone will say "yea man go use visionaire"...thats not really my question. Why would someone use this engine over AGS? What would be "good reasons"?

Should I investigate further, or just let it go and not bother wasting my time on Visionaire?

Matti · Sat 01/08/2009 17:51:04

This isn't the right place at all. Adventure related Talk or General Discussion would be fitting places.

As for your question: I don't know Visionaire, so I can't say anything.

MrColossal · Sat 01/08/2009 19:15:53

I've never heard of it before, looks interesting, I would suggest you try it out as much as you can and then compare the two and post it here.

Joseph DiPerla · Sat 01/08/2009 20:45:35

Well... AGS is free for one thing. Visionaire does not support scripting (I dont think) while AGS doesn't support easy game making (Meaning you cant create a game without scripting). Those are the big differences to me.

Andail · Sat 01/08/2009 23:14:40

You can create a rather playable game in AGS with practically no scripting skills.

As for this Visionaire...I say go ahead and buy it if you feel tempted. There are no finished games to try out, and the community doesn't seem very big or very active, so I would probably wait a bit myself.

Takyon · Sun 02/08/2009 00:58:38

Visionaire is not so great IMO. I've used it and it has limitations I feel. Also you have to pay for the full version. As far as I know very few people actually still use visionaire. You could try lassie or WME but AGS is also one of the best.

The very first draft of the whispered world was created in visionaire though, but now they use a different engine.

Joseph DiPerla · Sun 02/08/2009 01:16:47

Quote from: Andail on Sat 01/08/2009 23:14:40
You can create a rather playable game in AGS with practically no scripting skills.

As for this Visionaire...I say go ahead and buy it if you feel tempted. There are no finished games to try out, and the community doesn't seem very big or very active, so I would probably wait a bit myself.

Zak McKracken 2 (The big one) was created with Visionaire.

Clarvalon · Sun 02/08/2009 02:13:51

Having only discovered it a few months ago, I sketched out a short writeup on AGS vs Visionaire vs WME vs XAGE but not found the time to finish it. Time's been maddeningly short and my attention span shorter. It was also shamefully biased*.

There's actually a lot to like about Visionaire. The tools certainly have a proffessional air and look very legitimate, plus it shares some design goals with XAGE (accessible to non-coders, perhaps at the expense of versatility). My two main problems with it were GUI complexity and performance. I found WME and Visionaire quite bewildering to begin with, whereas AGS has quite a simple, friendly interface. As for performance, the Visionaire demo game ran like a pig on my netbook, whereas none of the other engines had any performance issues at all. The AGS community trumps all by quite some distance.

* Unsurprisingly, XAGE was awarded a million bonus points for console support.

Jared · Sun 02/08/2009 06:38:40

Quote from: Joseph DiPerla on Sat 01/08/2009 20:45:35while AGS doesn't support easy game making (Meaning you cant create a game without scripting).

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't versions 2.71 back support games that were non-scripted? ISTR windows for every interaction with numbered messages. Unless you were using scripts you couldn't make a particularly good game, but you could definitely make a basic one.

Khris · Sun 02/08/2009 13:31:44

It's not as powerful as AGS by a long shot. Even though they added a script language recently (v3), you are pretty limited in what you can do. Creating a e.g. a convincing LucasArts-style lowres game is more or less impossible and the engine is extremely focused on adventure games.
Coding something as simple as a mini-game or an action sequence will probably turn into a big hassle quickly.

If you want to create a basic adventure game without much effort that uses more or less standard puzzles only, it might be worth a look, but since AGS got the sleek new editor and highres support, it wins in that category, too, IMO.

Ryan Timothy B · Sun 02/08/2009 14:31:29

Quotebut since AGS got the sleek new editor and highres support, it wins in that category

I don't know. Since AGS doesn't support wide screen monitors without stretching them, or playing in a window. I don't know if it actually 'wins' in that category.
Well, unless by wins, you're referring to visionaire not having higher resolutions (which in that case I don't know).

Babar · Sun 02/08/2009 14:34:56

* Babar does his usual whining about the lack of interaction editor in AGS.

Not that I'd switch to Visionaire, anyhow.

cosmicr · Mon 03/08/2009 04:34:58

this is the first time I've seen it, it looks very professional. AGS definitely still has a 'backyard' feel to it. But at the end of the day I still prefer AGS, because all I'm interested in is Sierra style games and AGS is perfect for them.

What do people think of wintermute? Its getting a large following and has some pretty good features.

Knox · Mon 03/08/2009 18:00:12

Ive tried Wintermute aswell...I didnt really like it at all actually. Bottom line for me, so far, is AGS is just must more user-friendly.

Now if the widescreen support thing could be implemented in a future release....

Takyon · Mon 03/08/2009 18:42:20

AGS is by far the most user friendly and the community is the best but WME has many many advantages once you get your head round it lol.

Eggie · Mon 03/08/2009 19:16:03

I'm interested in Winterminute for it's 3D model support (although I don't know the fourth thing about 3D modelling, it's on my to-learn list) and, in particular, Lassie for it's .swf support (pretty much a match made in heaven for me but it's just way too buggy to be practically usable at the moment) but... I'm using AGS because it's the only program that seem to hate me QUITE so much as the others.

Mr Flibble · Mon 03/08/2009 19:24:17

I remember reading on Blender's website that it had some kind of game-making capability* although I never actually found out if this was true or how to use it. Add that to the list of things I couldn't figure out how to do in Blender then...

*as in, built in, not just "make models for your games".

Further looking on the Wiki brought up this so I guess I wasn't just going mad.