Topic: Indiana Jones and the Seven Cities of Gold - Artists Wanted!

[doctorfargo]

Just a quick update - our website has moved:
http://binarylegends.net

[Monsieur OUXX]

Astronomy consultant wanted

We're going to have several puzzles revolving around astronomy.

By astronomy, we mean those sorts of concepts :
- constellations (both north and south hemisphere)
- what's the equinox, the azimuth, etc., and have a vague idea of how they might be included in calculations -- either to predict earth position, or constellations/planets/positions...
- how it potentially relates to the time of the year or to the actual year (can one hypothetically tell what year it is just from looking at the sky?)
- what are the planets that can be seen with the naked eye, what can be deduced from just looking at the sky, what can be deduced from having instruments (and which types of instruments, such as astrolabs and stuff)
- etc.

- Bonus: some very rough knowledge in the history of astronomy -- South American Mayan stuff

Your knowledge should not be necessarily very advanced. It can even be very basic. But you must have (very rough) ideas on all of that.
We'll probably ask you specific questions from time to time, to have clearer ideas in terms of what's possible or not in terms of puzzles.



PS: just to be clear, we're talking astronomy, not astrology. I mentionned the constellations becvause they're an important part of the sky map.

[AnasAbdin]

In terms of game production:

- constellations (both north and south hemisphere)
- how it potentially relates to the time of the year or to the actual year
- what are the planets that can be seen with the naked eye, what can be deduced from just looking at the sky, what can be deduced from having instruments (and which types of instruments, such as astrolabs and stuff)

There are several apps and/or websites that generate the sky at any date, time, and from any location on earth.
Note that for a simple person, the difference between planets and stars in the sky is that stars twinkle and planets don't.

(can one hypothetically tell what year it is just from looking at the sky?)

No. Even a professional astrophysicist may give a broad time range. The sky doesn't change much yearly. Change in space takes millions of years except if you want to include supernovae which happen at a precise year. Still too risky to use. However, you can tell what day of the year by some calculations and shadow length/angle. But as I said, too risky for a puzzle. I did a very complicated orbital puzzle before which generated tons of emails asking me for the solution even though the solve was in the game (players get a scroll that has the answer..) still, be careful with complicated puzzles.

- what's the equinox, the azimuth, etc., and have a vague idea of how they might be included in calculations -- either to predict earth position, or constellations/planets/positions...
- etc.
- Bonus: some very rough knowledge in the history of astronomy -- South American Mayan stuff

Please feel free to PM me any question and you may shut me anytime because once I get started only a black hole can stop me (It won't actually, I'd still be talking just my output won't be able to escape the gravitational pull!)

[Monsieur OUXX]

Please feel free to PM me any question and

Haha! All you had to do was to say: "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!"
I'll send you messages.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Scripting challenge : text-based adventure module

Hello adventure lovers! This project is still alive and kicking, and needs you more than ever to be finished in record time!
In the past we've noticed that scripting attracts more contributors than graphists or musician. So here goes our noew scripting challenge.

General idea of this module :
- Start from the Tumbleweed game template. The actions used in your script must be the 9 verb actions of that module.
- Whenever you enter a room, after fade-in a GUI appears on top of the room (the GUI takes the whole screen).
- This GUI contains some sort of console (a listbox, really) that is used to display text.
- This GUI scans the hotspots, objects and characters of the room. It lists them in the console. It also somehow lists the exits (it's OK if that bit is hard-coded for every room)
- There's a textbox in the GUI that lets you type one of the 9 verbs (take, look, push, pull, open, close, use, talk, give) followed by what object or hotspot or character you want to interact with. Example: TAKE CUP
- When you type the command, the action is executed. However you have to imagine that you can only run the interaction command as if the player had clicked on the object. And you have to imagine that the corresponsding function has already been scripted, with potentially some "player.walk to" in it -- i.e. some blocking or asynchronous instructions that do not go well with the sequential nature of your console. How will you handle the  "walk to"? You can decide to let the regular walk happen behind the scene, or decide to force-skip it, I don't mind as long as it doesn't crash the module.

BONUS :
Extra points if you:
- make the whole thing a git repository and post the URL
- Handle the complete absence of walkable areas in the room (that's right: we might already have scripted the "walk to", but not drawn the walkable areas yet)
- Handle dialogs with other characters (they don't have to appear in the console as long that they can be read by the player on top of your custom GUI)
- Handle cutscenes

It doesn't have to look pretty, it's only a tool for super quick prototyping.

Scripting guidelines :
- No global variables scattered accross the code please (gui names, font names, import/exports, etc.). Please set local variables up in game_start and then use those only.
- use struct as much as possible (an exception will be made for "global" variables used only in the body of the module).

Suggestions:
- Font : I suggest using the Tiny font from the Tumbleweed module to pack more text.
- Console : You can ind out-of-the box text wrapping algorithms somehwere in these forums. Alternatively you can steal the biggest part of the AGS Console module to avoid having to rewrite all the boring utility functions for console scrolling and whatnot. Please note however that we also use that module in our game so the names could be conflicting.

So what do you say?

PS : please post it here if you've started giving it a try, so that you don't colide with someone else.

[mkennedy]

Back some years ago I wrote a module that would add automated text parser functionality to existing point and click games, though that was way back before version 3 and I don't know if it's still available on the web anymore (Though I still have the zip files if you want them).

[Monsieur OUXX]

Back some years ago I wrote a module that would add automated text parser functionality to existing point and click games, though that was way back before version 3 and I don't know if it's still available on the web anymore (Though I still have the zip files if you want them).

Hi! Thanks again for sending your module. I've been testing it: It's a nice replacement to a plain parser but in terms of functionality it doesn't add much to a regular parser, and it doesn't address the requirements that we expressed. That doesn't make it a good candidate. Thanks anyways for your willingness to let us have a look at it.