Total Beginner

[V01dw1tch]

First time user of AGS here, been trying to use it for a school project of mine. As someone relatively new to the actual making of adventure games (or games in general), may i ask what are the differences between the BASS, Sierra, Tumbleweed, and Verb coin templates in AGS (Specifically, what makes the unique i think? The only thing i know is that BASS games use just the left and right mouse button etc.).

I personally don't know much about adventure games and my google search didn't result to anything useful. I judged that this question isn't really related to scripting which is why i posted it in here instead of the beginner technical forum.

Please tell me if I had posted on the wrong forum and thank you for those who will respond!

[Snarky]

Welcome to AGS!

The differences are about the User Interface (UI): the control system that lets the player interact with the world. The templates copy the standard UIs from various old-school adventure-game publishers.

Sierra (King's Quest V-style): Your mouse cursor shows an icon for a particular kind of action (walk, interact, look, talk, …); you switch between them by right-clicking
Tumbleweed (Thimbleweed Park/old LucasArts-style): In the lower part of the screen, there are buttons for different actions; you click the button for the action you want and then on the thing you want to do it on
BASS (Beneath A Steel Sky-style): There are only two types of actions, look and interact. One is left-click, the other right-click.
Verb-coin (Curse of Monkey Island-style): To choose your action, you bring up a kind of menu (the "verb coin") by your cursor, usually by clicking, right-clicking or by holding down a mouse button

There are other differences between them as well, but this should give you a basic idea. You can watch videos of the games being mimicked to give you a better idea.

[eri0o]

Let's do a templates presentation then!

Empty Game
As the name says, it's empty, even no rooms, you need to create one before getting started. Try this one later. As you gain more familiarity with the engine you may find yourself using this one more and making your own way of interacting with things.


BASS
Based on an old game called Beneath A Steel Sky, it uses left and right click to do actions, being left interact and right to look. You also have an inventory already ready to hold items.


Sierra-style
Old-school Sierra games like King's Quest had this interface, where you had different actions on top and you could select one and then use it with something. It also includes a little menu and other niceties to make a sierra-like point and click.


Verb Coin
The verb coin is an interface where you select what you want to interact with and then select which action to use. This interface was present in games like Full-throttle, but it also appears in mobile games because it's reasonably intuitive.


Tumbleweed
This interface is an evolution of the old-school Lucasarts games that used the famed 9-verb interface, and is based on the interface used in the game Thimbleweed Park. The inventory is in down-right corner and the verbs are at bottom left. This interface is a bit different than the others code wise and comes with additional modules!

[heltenjon]

There are advantages and drawbacks to all of these. Tumbleweed gives you more verbs to play with, but takes up a part of the screen. And you better use all those verbs, too. Sierra and BASS lose some of the intricacies, perhaps, but offer you a full screen for your graphics.

If you have limited time on your school project, then perhaps BASS will save you some time, as you only have to code responses for the two clicks? It depends on what you are going to make. Best of luck, and feel free to ask more.

[Snarky]

Yeah, if you don't have any particular preference or requirement, the BASS template is probably your best bet. (Some games simplify it even further into a "single-click UI" where there's no difference between left-click and right-click. One example of this is Unavowed.)

Verb coin may be a defensible choice if your game will have several essential and interesting interaction mechanics, particularly if you're targeting mobile platforms (for which AGS has limited support). Sierra and Thimbleweed are mainly for nostalgia; if you have no background in adventure games, they probably don't make sense for you.

[Crimson Wizard]

I think it's worth mentioning that the template is merely a starting set of resources, including script, and everything may be changed later. It's possible to implement an individual control scheme for you game.

[Danvzare]

If you're making a school project, then I agree that BASS is probably the best choice. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to use the right mouse button. You could have both buttons do the same thing, and only have the character examine objects that they can't interact with.

I personally wouldn't recommend that you use the other templates.
You need to know what you're doing with those, and be willing to make puzzles that incorporate all of their functionality.
Your first game shouldn't be too complex.

Each interface has it's own pros and cons, and you can find some debates on this forum about which is considered the best.
The best way to find out which one you prefer though, is by trying them all out. Preferably in some classic games that they were used in. So a good selection of games to play would be... Beneath a Steel Sky, Space Quest 4, Curse of Monkey Island, and Day of the Tentacle.