Topic: TEMPLATE: Tumbleweed Verbs 1.2 Last update: 4th April 2019

[Flugeldufel]

First of all: Thank you, abstauber for this nice template! Gefällt mir!

I'm currently working on my first game and I changed some GUIs and sprites to match my taste. Among others I replaced the verbs with the ones shown in the screenshot.
Now I'm not sure, if (when I release this game sometime) I might get problems because it looks too similar to the original Thimbleweed-verbs. (although I drew them totally new for that low resolution, 320x180)

Should I change it? What do you all think? 



Here's a comparison of both:

mine:




Thimbleweed Park:

[abstauber]

Wow, those graphics look really nice!

Well the button font is quite close to the one of Thimbleweed Park - I'd say if you go commercial, you might want to go for a more independet route.

But if it's freeware I don't see any issues at all - the font (also the color) fits your game perfectly (as far as I can tell from your background)

[Flugeldufel]

Thank you very much for your feedback! And you confirmed what I already thought.
I don't know, if it's going to be freeware or commercial - it will depend on how complex the game will finally be, full length or not... We'll see. It's still at an early stage.
So I think I'll keep the sprites for now and maybe make some new ones later.

By the way, I would give the actual sprites to anyone who's interested in using them. Just let me know...

[croquetasesina]

Is it possible to save more than nine games?

[abstauber]

Yes, out of the box, you are stuck with nine games. But you can of course extend the save/load gui to your liking: you just need to add more save/load buttons and tell the optiongui script about it.

[abstauber]

Maybe it's time to finally declare 1.2 to be stable. 

This is mainly a refactoring release, no new functions have been added so far. But internally the template has changed a lot.

- cleaned up the global script (moved the remaining GUI actions to the options menu module)
- Localisation of the GUI elements is handled a bit different internally
- It's possible to change the GUIs being used by the template
- Some more refactoring, the template throws errors if a module is missing.
- Bugfix: Option GUI wasn't translated if English is not set as default language

[Crimson Wizard]

Hello, I'd like to report a bug.

Preferably performed in larger rooms for convenience:
* Have room 1 and room2;
* In room 2 script cutscene where player's character is walking non-blocking in After Fade-in event

Code: Adventure Game Studio

1. player.Walk(x,y,eNoBlock);
2. while (player.Moving) Wait(1);
3.  

* Run the game, and when in room 1 start running with double-click;
* Immediately press Ctrl+X and change to room 2.

The player character will continue running during cutscene in another room.

Thinking about it, maybe it's enough to just run a cutscene in the same room. Guess the mistake is that character keeps running even when another Walk is called by a script command, even though it may not be required.

[abstauber]

Hi and thanks for the bugreport.

I think, that this is because I check the running in repexec and not repexec always. An easy thing to mitigate this for room changes would be to stop running, everytime you change a room. Also by using CTRL-X you're cheating a bit, as I'm checking for 'regular' room changes at line VerbGui.asc:2519

Running is also cancelled by every new mouseclick, so for this to happen you need to trigger a cutscene while the player is running without any other interaction or event. And the game designer would not stop the player from moving. The question is: how to detect such a cutscene.
I could use Game.InSkippableCutscene, but this would leave out unskipable cutscenes. Maybe a solution would be simply to add a StopRunning command which you would call in a cutscene

I'd love to get some more input on this.

Anyway to stop running also via CTRL-X room changes, this should do the trick
VerbGui.asc:2181

Code: Adventure Game Studio

1. function on_event(EventType event, int data)
2. {
3.   if (event == eEventEnterRoomBeforeFadein) {
4.     Verbs.CheckDefaultAction();
5.     Verbs.UpdateActionBar();
6.    
7.     verbsData.player_is_running = false;
8.     player.StopMoving();
9.     player.SetWalkSpeed(verbsData.player_walk_x_speed,  verbsData.player_walk_y_speed);
10.     player.AnimationSpeed = verbsData.player_ani_speed;
11.   }
12.  
13.   else if (event==eEventRestoreGame) {
14.     //Verbs.AdjustLanguage();
15.     Verbs.InitGuiLanguage();
16.   }
17. }
18.  

[StickGrinder]

Hello abstauber.

After lurking here for some time now I discovered this new template and decided to register to the forum just to say THANK YOU!.
I was trying to deconstruct the included 9-Verb MI interface this afternoon, not realizing it was maintained out of AGS itself and here we are with this successor that at a first glance is a big leap forward.
Can't wait to deep dive into it tomorrow.

EDIT: I read through the documentation and tested the template and I have two questions:

1. Is there any documentation about the inner working of the translations (i.e. contributors guidelines or such) that explains how and why they are addressed in that way?

2. Given TWP and pretty all modern game are built for widescreens, isn't it better to provide a 356x200 resolution out of the box instead of sticking with good old 320x200?

Thanks for your effort (all the contributors) and I hope I'll have something to show based on your work soon!
Cheers

[abstauber]

Thanks a lot, I hope you'll have fun with AGS and the template.
I'm afraid I'm still a sucker for the old resolutions, besides there are a lot of devices out there with a non 16:9 aspect ratio out there (Macbooks, Surface devices, Phones etc). So I'd like to keep the retro standard for now

As for the translations:
(bottom of the page)
https://github.com/dkrey/ags_tumbleweed/blob/master/doc/9verb_intro.rst

https://github.com/dkrey/ags_tumbleweed/blob/master/doc/9verb_translation.rst

[StickGrinder]

I see your point about resolution.

What's your position about derivative works? I mean, what if I commit to maintain a forked version of your Tumbleweed which defaults to widescreen devices?
Or possibly a sort of "add-on" package with pre-made WS assets?

I understand it's FOSS but I don't want to offend any unwritten rule of AGS community, nor you personally in any way.

[abstauber]

I think nobody has a problem with keeping or maintaining forks of the template.
Yet I can't imagine that 320x200 puts anybody off because of it's aspect ratio. Changing the resolution of a gameproject should be matter of minutes and art assets have to be created anyway.

Do you intend to maintain templates for 200p, 720p and 1080p? I could image that all this work wouldn't be worth it..

[StickGrinder]

First of all, my apologies for the confusion: I was actually thinking about aspect ratio, not resolution, as you correctly pointed out.

That said, my opinion is that starting widescreen right out should add to the perception of something that can fit a modern production, not just emulating the golden era. Going 16:9 was also a choice that Terrible Toybox did for the referenced game, so that it kinda feels like a game from the 90s but it leverages what devices can do now.

The very good example by Fluegeldufel some post above shows that there should be interest in widescreen games after all
But of course I don't think anybody will put off by this template to be 4:3! It was just to help newcomers like me hit the ground running.

But most of all: I'm totally aware that those are my speculations and perceptions, probably not even worth the proverbial 2 cents.
If you or someone else in the community see any value in contributing this, I'm happy to help. If not, I'm happy to help anyway (stopping bothering you with my blurb)! 

Thanks again for your work and kind help, this template is so much cleaner and easy to grasp than the former one to someone like me!

[Crimson Wizard]

But of course I don't think anybody will put off by this template to be 4:3! It was just to help newcomers like me hit the ground running.

To be fair, this template is not 4:3, 320x200 is actually 16:10.

Of course it may be worth to stress out (in the manual or template's documentation) that user does not have to stick to template's resolution or aspect ratio; a well made template is resolution independent (and I believe this one is).

PS. With the upcoming AGS 3.5.0 release it's even possible to change game resolution while keeping all original demo assets, because it now allows to have rooms smaller than game res and, for example, center them on wider game screen.

[StickGrinder]

To be fair, this template is not 4:3, 320x200 is actually 16:10.

One more reason to stop jabbering and leave things as they are
Thanks