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Hi - I'm working on a game with walkable areas that are quite thin and isometric, and am finding the continuous scaling option a little clunky for this as it applies quite significant shifts in scaling as the player walks left to right (difference between top pixel and bottom pixel of the area isn't very high, but there needs to be a fair difference in scaling from far left of screen to far right). I found a super old module that can shift the angle of scaling, making it scale from left to right rather than top to bottom (link here), but it doesn't seem to run right now (could just be me being dull) and was just curious if there was already something like this in the updated engine?

Posted in Beginner's since I suppose this could very well be a simple reply! Bit old and rusty on this engine

Hey peoples of AGS! After a brief spark of twitter genius, a few of us considered the idea off getting a booth at PAX Australia in 2013 for the purpose of showing of any and all AGS games. The idea came up since, as booths are hella expensive - I was quoted $1800 just for an 'indie desk', which is the bare minimum, or $3,118.50 for the smallest of the regular showroom booths - we figured it could be a wise option to pool our resources and join forces to host a single booth for all AGSers interested.

Now, the first obvious thing is price. I'm not really sure what to suggest, I know that a lot of people have already pooled in money recently for AdventureX, and furthermore there would be some more inclined to pay up since they have commercial titles (like myself) and would be gaining more out of it through sales. Here's a copy of the sales doc that was sent out to me, which outlines all the different booths and sizes, the smallest that I mentioned earlier being 6 total meters for $3,118.50. This would most likely be more than enough for what we need I would think. I highly doubt an 'indie desk' would be ideal, I was told it would be basically a one by three meter table. Or maybe that could be enough? I don't know!

Anyway, this idea is still in it's infancy, so I was more or less putting it up here to start a discussion for it, start getting an idea for who might be interested in participating, and start throwing ideas around for funding it and so forth if enough people are keen! I for one am pretty excited about it, not only to be able to show off my own work at PAX, but to meet other Aus AGSers, and share some of the great stuff in these forums with the PAX folk. Soooo peoples, brainstorm away!

[Krams Design]

Krams Design presents...

 

Anna's Quest is a black comedy adventure game set in a dark fairy-tale like setting inspired by The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen... with a sci-fi twist!

The story follows Anna, a young girl who, in the search of a cure for her ailing Grandpa, has been captured and kept under lock and key in a tower deep in the dark wood by an evil old witch. The witch has plans – plans that involve large, mysterious machines and cruel experiments with Anna. What the witch doesn't count on, however, are the powerful telekinetic forces brought up within Anna, and Anna's own plans of escape...

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBDQ06C4t5U&feature=player_embedded

Screenshots:
(please click image for full resolution)

Features include:

    * DRM free download
    * 'Telekinesis' icon giving new depths to puzzle design and player interaction
    * A range of hand drawn, frame-by-frame 2D animations, including short intro and ending cutscenes
    * An Original Soundtrack by James Flamestar
    * Full voice acting! Featuring the talent of:

           
• Sophie Le Neveu as 'Anna'
• Holly Stevenson as 'Winfriede' the Witch
• Nicholas Andrew Louie as 'Joringel'
• Karen Kahler as the narrator

An example of some of the animation work can be seen here in a 'behind the scenes' promo video.

I have a loading screen that runs through all the animations of the game before the game starts (just to have them in memory), but I need to mute out the sound using Game.SetAudioTypeVolume(eAudioTypeSound, 0, eVolExistingAndFuture) since a lot of them have sounds triggered on certain frames, which I then bring back to 100 volume once the loading is complete. I was just wondering though, since this line will override any future volumes set for sound, is there any way of restoring the game to recognising the default volumes set for individual sounds again? Or is there maybe another way to temporarily mute all the sounds during the loading that won't permanently affect the volume of sounds later?

Alright, I'm baffled by this. Every time I run the 'Auto-number speech lines' wizard, I get this error:



As far as I can tell, there aren't any parse errors. I'm even more sure of this since I tried going in and literally rewriting the line that's been pulled up, it just creates the exact same error for another line, and these lines don't seem to have anything wrong with them! It also seems like I get the same error for 'Create voice acting script', and whether it's for the same reason or not (I assume it might be since it's referring to parsing errors) I get this error if I use the Speech Center plugin:



If anyone at all can shine some light on what's happening here, maybe there's something those error messages are showing that I don't see or understand, then I'd really appreciate it!

[The Game:]

Krams Design presents...

The Game:
Anna's Quest is a short form, black comedy adventure game that's a dark fairy-tale like story inspired by The Brothers Grimm with a sci-fi twist.

The story follows Anna, a young girl kept under lock and key in a deep, dark wood by an evil old woman who runs Anna through a series of tests and experiments. What she doesn't count on, however, are the powerful telekinetic forces brought up within Anna that opens up her first window of escape...
For more info on the game, visit the AGS game thread here or the official website here. An early version of the intro movie can be seen here, as well as a slightly outdated teaser here.

Auditions:
I'm currently looking for actors to cast for all four of the characters with speaking roles in the first two chapters of the game. Below, the four character pics link to their individual character sheets with details on their personality and audition lines I'm after. If you're interested, please record a take or two of each line and email them through to me as soon as you can. My email is dbe.krams@gmail.com
I've posted this around quite a few different places, but I've been impressed by some of the voices you guys have done for previous AGS games, so I'm pretty keen to see if there's any interest in here to fill the roles!

Characters needed to be cast:
(please click image for full character sheets and audition lines)

               

Feel free to audition for however many characters you like! If you have any queries at all, leave them as a reply here or otherwise email me them too if you like. Thanks for checking the page out, and I look forward to hearing your audition

UPDATE - 30th May 2012: All auditions are now closed off, with the casting currently underway. If you've sent in an audition, you should be hearing back from me in the next few days. A really huge and genuine thanks to everyone for entering, the response was amazing! It's a shame I can't cast more people this episode, but there will be more characters and more episodes in the not so distant future...

Alright, can't seem to find anyone who's had the same issue exactly so here goes - I'm getting stuck in an endless loop. I have the mouse mode changing to an exit arrow over the hotspot for a room exit, and if the player hasn't met certain conditions, clicking on it triggers a scene where the player talks about why they cant use the exit yet. BUT at the end of this, the player keeps walking back to the hotspot and triggering the same scene over and over! I figure it's because the game is told to process the attempted exit when the mouse is in that particular mode, but I can't figure out a work around. I tried this at the end of the scene...

Code: ags

Mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
overhotspot.Text = "@OVERHOTSPOT@";
overhotspot.Visible = true;
player.StopMoving();

...in order to set the mouse mode back to normal, but nope, didn't help. As you can tell I'm just trying to throw whatever I can at the game to get it to not process the click at the end of this scene, but it's determined to ignore me and keep the loop going
I also have this code in repeatedly execute since I was having the mouse mode hanging in exit mode sometimes...

Code: ags

if (mouse.Mode == (eModeExitDown || eModeExitRight || eModeExitUp || eModeUsermode1)){
  if (Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y) == hAttToRoof || Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y) == hWeakSpot || Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y) == hAtticToBed){
    //do nothing
  } else {
    if (cAnna.ActiveInventory == null){
      Mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
    } else {
      Mouse.Mode = eModeUseinv;
    }
  }
}

buuuut that doesnt help in this situation for some reason, even if I move it to repeatedly execute always. Anyone...?

EDIT: Ahhhh, okay, looking at that second code I realise its useless in this situation - the hotspot in question is hWeakSpot, and since the game still thinks the mouse is over the hotspot I suppose its just not doing anything and leaving it. I still need that code though to prevent the mouse from hanging in exit mode sometimes though... any suggestions?

[Egress]

Krams Design presents...

Egress is a short form sci-fi adventure game set in the outer reaches of space.

The story begins when you, the commander of a two man recon team, are sent hurtling into space during maintenance on an interplanetary probe. After a sudden attack from an black alien substance, you awake on a mysterious planet.

Where are you? How did you get there? And why is your partner screaming for help down the intercom…

Features include:
- Cinematic hand drawn, frame-by-frame 2D animation, including short intro and ending sequences
- Multiple endings designed to reflect the actions of the player

Screenshots:
(click on images for full resolution)

To download, follow the link from my Egress game page.

There is voice acting in the works, but due to a lack of time on my part I haven't been able to get it organised well enough (hence the ongoing delays 8)). In all honesty though it won't be ready for some time, so until then, please enjoy this version! I'll be sure to update this page as soon as I get a talkie edition completed.

Really looking forward to what everyone thinks! Enjoy!

EDIT: Please note that you can skip just about every cutscene and transition by pressing the 'ESC' key. Failing to have mentioned this in the how to play section was a great boo-boo on my part. Sorry for everyone who has endured frustration over this!

Article Links on Egress:
Gnome's Lair feature
IndieGames.com Freeware Game Pick
Rock, Paper, Shotgun feature
The Dead Pixel Post feature
PCGamer free PC game pick

Hey, once again I'm pretty sure this has an easy solution that I'm just not seeing, but when I use ShakeScreenBackground it gets this kind of doubling up effect that looks a bit crap.

Example


So when the screen is shaking down, there's still a copy of the pic in the normal position behind it. I've tried random things like capturing the screen, changing the background to black and shaking the screen then, but it still ends up doing the same thing. My preference obviously is to just have black across the top when the screen shakes downwards.

[Egress]

Krams Design presents...

Egress is a short form sci-fi adventure game set in the outer reaches of space.

The story begins when you, the commander of a two man recon team, are sent hurtling into space during maintenance on an interplanetary probe. After a sudden attack from an black alien substance, you awake on a mysterious planet.

Where are you? How did you get there? And why is your partner screaming for help down the intercom…

Features include:
- Cinematic hand drawn, frame-by-frame 2D animation, including short intro and ending sequences
- Multiple endings designed to reflect the actions of the player

Screenshots:
(click on images for full resolution)

Progress:
- graphics 100%
- puzzles 95%
- scripting 80%
- music/sound 90%

As you can see, the game is basically done. I'll probably end up being wrong for one reason or another, but it should only be a few more days in development, a week at most. I wasn't going to post this at first and rather jump straight to the finished section, but I'd love to get some testers to try it out before I send it into the big scary world. Please PM me if you're interested, and I'll be sure to get a link to you as soon as possible!

Also just quickly for those of you who happen to know that I was putting most of my focus on another game, there's been a bit of a hold on it for the time being so getting this done was a nice distraction! But that other game is most definately still being made!

<< COMPLETED GAMES RELEASE THREAD >>

I've been using the 'aSound20.Play()' rather than the old 'PlaySound(20)' and 'PlayAmbientSound(etc)', but I was wondering how ambient sound is declared using the 'aSound20.Play()' way?

I tried just using the old way for just ambient sounds, but the game hangs using the following loop:

Code: ags

while(Game.IsAudioPlaying(eAudioTypeSound)){
  Wait(1);
}

The hang only happens when I have the ambient sound playing, so I'm assuming it's reading the ambient as a sound playing and doesn't leave the loop. Which seems strange to me since I thought that was the point of having 'Game.IsAudioPlaying(eAudioTypeAmbientSound)'? I'm confused  :'(

Yes, a little cliched I know, but I'm interested in seeing some original creations! Of course you can do a sprite of an existing monster if you really have to, but points go to originality here. Can be of any size and use of colour, so long as it's playable in an AGS game. Comp goes from 24th of March to 7th of April, so put your Giger caps on and get to work!

I suppose this is potentially a beginner's type query, but has anyone else had experience with 1024x768 projects on 4:3 monitors? I have both a 4:3 and a widescreen, and the game runs fine on the widescreen but becomes stretched vertically on the 4:3 since it's native resolution is 1280x1024, which is a slightly different aspect ratio to the game's 1024x768. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I might go about fixing this issue...

[Screenshots:]

Krams Design presents...

Anna's Quest is a short form, black comedy adventure game that's a dark fairy-tale like story inspired by The Brothers Grimm with a sci-fi twist.

The story follows Anna, a young girl kept under lock and key in a deep, dark wood by an evil old woman who runs Anna through a series of tests and experiments. What she doesn't count on, however, are the powerful telekinetic forces brought up within Anna that opens up her first window of escape...

Screenshots:
(please click image for full resolution)


(screens feature graphics that are works in progress)

Features include:

    * 'Telekinesis' icon giving new depths to puzzle design and player interaction
    * 'Ted' – an oversized teddy bear (also a victim of the old woman's wicked schemes) who walks & talks and will assist in Anna's escape
    * A range of hand drawn, frame-by-frame 2D animations, including short intro and ending cutscenes

An example of some of the animation work can be seen here in a 'behind the scenes' promo video.

Notes on Development

5th September 2012 - BETA TESTERS NEEDED: The first volume, chapters 1 and 2, are officially complete with full voice acting and original soundtrack! Now we just need some sucke- ahhh... kind persons to test the beta out. If you're keen, private message me with your email, or email me directly (dbe.krams(at)gmail.com) so I can send you a link!

I'll be posting more info up as production continues.
For more info and details please check out my website, Krams Design.

Hey all, here's the verb coin I've been working on for my game 'Anna's Room'. It's gone through a few stages now and I've gotten to the stage where I can't tell if it's successfully simple, or ugly simple. I liked the idea of keeping it straight forward and not too flashy, but now I'm not so sure. I've included a screenshot of it being used in game to give you an idea of how it fits with the look of the game (but please ignore the cursor, it's temp and extremely ugly ).

The pics are (from left to right) idle, 'use', 'look', 'talk to', and 'telekinesis'. Feedback will be greatly appreciated!

I'm sure this is something simple, but does anyone have any idea how to go about stopping AGS from automatically selecting the last available dialogue option? I know it may sound redundant but I do have my reasons not to want it. I just want that one remaining dialogue to pop up and wait for the player to select it.

I am writing a custom dialogue options screen that I initially based off the manual example, so if there's something amongst that code I'm missing (which I'm sure there is), I'd be grateful for someone to point it out to me

Alright... I have a video, an mp4 encoded with h264, which I'm running with the standard playvideo function. It seems to be running fine in D3D, but when I try and run it in directdraw it comes up with a black screen, keeps playing the audio, and the game becomes unresponsive. I waited out to see if the functions ran as per normal at the end of the video's music, but nothing happens.  It's basically crashed and frozen as soon as the video starts to play and I have to force quit the program.

Anyone have any ideas? Could this just be an issue with the codec and directdraw? I figured this was something like that or at least something else I'd done wrong so it's why I've posted it in beginner tech  

EDIT: Ok so it does seem to be an issue with h264 at the moment, but if I could I really would prefer to use it. Has anyone else got video with this codec working through directdraw? Or is there some kind of issue between dd and h264 that I'm not aware of?

I'm hoping this isn't some stupid oversight on my behalf (which is always a possibility with my technical problems), but I'm getting a weird purplish tint over everything when I run the game full screen on D3D. Directdraw displays full screen normally at least, but D3D looks so much better! (minus the weird colour tint, of course) so I'd like to figure it out.

I'm using AGS 3.2 and thought of mentioning it in the 3.2 thread due to the talk of tinting issues going on between the two filters, but also didn't want to clutter it up if this particular issue is caused by my own idiocy...

Alrighty, new sprite jam is to concoct a Bartender.

For what bar? Who knows. Maybe a grungy, biker back alley salloon, maybe an old English tavern, maybe a Cantina at Mos Eisley. Either way, we're looking for what your NPC will look like behind that counter serving those beverages. Besides, what's an adventure without a drinking hole?

Rules are pretty much open - any amount of colour and any resolution, so long as it results in a character that can be used in an AGS game. I'll open it up for voting on 16th November, so get your entries before then. Good luck!

[A Troll's Lair!]

Alrighty, more background fun! With the three billy goat's gruff story in mind, I thought it would be interesting to consider what the troll's home may look like, so let's draw...



A Troll's Lair! It can be under a bridge or in a cave - wherever a troll may call home.

I'll take Jim Reed's line and say the image should be AGS compatible, and you have free use of any colours you like.
You've got til 4th September - go go go!