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[5 indie games for $10]

I'm the cheapest person around, and have WANTED to play Resonance and Gemini Rue for a while now, but could never quite fork over the money.

Just bought them. And they are AWESOME!

At GOG.com, for their "Black Friday" week sale, they are offering 5 indie games for $10!!! I got Gemini Rue, Resonance, the Blackwell Bundle (all 4 games!!!), as well as a couple other interesting-looking ones. If you haven't already, you will never ever beat this price without being a nasty software pirate! Go and play them NOW!

I realize that this is a lot like WHAM's post about Dynamic sprites, because that's how I got to the point that I'm at now, where I'm stuck.

Here's my problem. I'm trying to take an entire series of animated sprites (in this case, a fireball), and rotate them so the player can cast the fireball in any direction, instead of just the 8 standard ones. It's not too hard to get this to work with one sprite, but I can't use iterative code to do all seven animation frames.

The following code works (I've got rotatedMissile defined globally)...

Code: AGS

ViewFrame *oldFrame = Game.GetViewFrame(VBOLTFLY, 8, 0);
rotatedMissile = DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(5513, true);
rotatedMissile.Rotate(30);
oldFrame.Graphic = rotatedMissile.Graphic;

But when I try to do stuff like this, it rotates the final sprite and fills the rest with cups...

Code: AGS

int rotateFrame = 0;
while(rotateFrame < 7){
  rotatedMissile = DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(5513 + rotateFrame, true);
  rotatedMissile.Rotate(30);
  ViewFrame *oldFrame = Game.GetViewFrame(VBOLTFLY, 8, rotateFrame);
  oldFrame.Graphic = rotatedMissile.Graphic;
  rotateFrame++;
}

Having not used Dynamic Sprites much, I get the feeling that the problem is that I've got one sprite, and I can't possibly use that same sprite for seven different frames. However, I can't bear the thought of creating 7 different global dynamic sprites and assigning them manually. Especially because there are a lot of other things that are supposed to fly through the air at a rotated angle while animating (enemy spells), possibly at the same time. And then I'd need a whole bunch more, all of which would have to be manually assigned.

Is there any way around this? Can I get an array of Dynamic sprites, for instance? I tried "DynamicSprite *rotatedMissile[7]" and it crashed. =) Or can I get the Dynamic Sprites to save to the frame more permanently, so I can reuse the Dynamic Sprite without it clearing the graphic in the loop?

[Triptych]

Triptych

A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three sections. Traditionally, this form was used a great deal in the middle ages for religious art like altarpieces and stained glass windows. The idea was that the three images side by side would tell a story or more fully illustrate some sort of principle, with the center of the idea in the center panel.

With that in mind, here's the shape to fill:



Some ideas to get you going:

- Three characters, or three aspects of a character (like fighter, magic user, thief)
- Connect something using the past, present, and future
- See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
- The three most important or useful items in an adventure
- Icons representing the three best games of all time

Remember, the best things in life are three!

Submissions: Feb. 26 - Mar. 12
Voting: Mar. 13 - Mar. 20
Awards: Mar. 21

Edited Timetable
Scratch Our Heads During the Forum Blackout: Feb. 26 - Mar. 4
Submissions: Mar. 5 - Mar. 20
Voting: Mar. 21 - Mar. 28
Awards: Mar. 29

[Game 1: Cops and Robbers.]

I hate the idea of using other people's resources.  In Arden's Vale, while I used objects and background ideas from other games, I always redrew them by hand.  It just helps the graphics look uniform.  But I hate the time it takes to create all the resources on my own.  It takes forever!

So here's my thinking: cram as much story and as many puzzles into the smallest possible space room-wise.  Like a OROW game, but more complex.  I'm currently fleshing out story and puzzles for two new games and would like some feedback before I actually start working on the coding/graphics/etc.

Game 1: Cops and Robbers.
You play the policeman in a certain given scenario and attempt to corner the thief.  You follow protocol, use intuition, and somehow, miraculously, the thief escapes.  Then you play the thief and have to figure out how to escape while the computer cop does roughly what you did as a cop.  Same room, same situation, two different play experiences.  Repeat for as many rooms as can be devised.

Game 2: Yesterday's Child.
You play a character who has a really horrible day (you're held hostage, attacked by aliens, expelled from school, trapped in a Chilean mine, whatever).  If only you'd known this would happen yesterday, you could have done something to prevent it and save yourself!  So you switch alternately back and forth playing today's you and yesterday's you, moving, locking/unlocking, destroying etc. things yesterday that make today's character able to make it through the day.

Both game ideas would reuse items, characters, and most importantly backgrounds in unique ways that facilitate easier production.  But both, at the same time, would require much sneakier puzzles to make the games function and be enjoyable.

My question is: does this approach sound feasible?  Which game would you rather play?  What kind of awful pitfalls do you see in this kind of game?  Would either even work?  Do you prefer games with more locations anyway?  Can you think of more practical ways to get more bang for your graphics buck? Any other comments?

I've been toying with a fun idea for a project, and I'm wondering if it's possible to play two music tracks at the same time, synched with each other, on separate channels, say.

On top of that, can I control the volume of each channel independently?

The real idea is to have a major and a minor version of the same song seamlessly fade in and out of each other without restarting the music each time the fade occurs.

I'm using AGS v3.1.2, but I saw that the new version has totally reworked the way music is handled.  Could it do this, perhaps?

The closest I could come is having one track play with "PlayAmbientSound", but any fadeout of the sound volume kills all the other sound effects...   Hrm...

[Arden's Vale]

Arden's Vale

Short-length Original Fantasy Adventure

Riel must embark on a dangerous quest to save her sister, who is on the brink of death, by stealing a magic stone with healing powers from an evil enchanter.  After infiltrating the enchanter's castle, you must survive sinister traps, talking gargoyles, quite nearly logical puzzles, terrible puns, and finally the enchanter himself in order to get the stone and save your sister.

Game Features:

Really cool heroine.  Meaning your player character.
Programmed responses for clicking just about anything just about anywhere.
Multiple solutions to over half of the puzzles!
Auto-updating in-game hint system that is accessed when you talk to yourself.
Hotspot identifier: all objects that are clickable have their names appear alongside the mouse.  No more looking at the top or bottom of the screen to figure out what's in the middle!
Tongue-in-cheek references to the best adventure games, including some from AGS!
Sweet, sweet animation.
Pretty darn sweet backgrounds.
Gorgeous orchestral music.
Retro sound effects.
A whole lotta love.

Version 1.1 (Released Oct. 7, 2011) has a bunch of enhancements, from improved animations, to new music, to an additional way to end the game!  Enjoy!

Click here for the main page and access to the free download.

I'm not an artist myself, and was hoping for a bit of help or advice on adding some texture to room backgrounds.  I've got some rooms that "work" in the game, but aren't really very interesting.  The first is near a force field.



In-game, the screen isn't awful, but I wince every time I look at the rocks, and there's just nothing going on behind the force field.  The actual background is below.




The second background that really gets me is below:



Towards the end of the game, you break into the enchanter's treasury.  The treasures in the back alcove are fun, but there's really nothing else to the room.



The floors and ceilings are particularly soulless.

What I'm hoping for are some recommendations or tips.  How do you make unimportant parts of the screen less boring without distracting from the important parts?  Any tips on lighting or textures?  Any examples of either I could borrow from?

[Arden's Vale]

Arden's Vale

Medium-length Fantasy Adventure

Riel must embark on a dangerous quest to save her sister, who is on the brink of death, by stealing a magic stone with healing powers from an evil enchanter.  After infiltrating the enchanter's castle, you must survive sinister traps, talking gargoyles, quite nearly logical puzzles, terrible puns, and finally the enchanter himself in order to get the stone and save your sister.

All original icon bar, and the main bar is updated with a graphic for "Arden's Vale".


Don't you just hate it when you have no idea which objects in the room are important and which are just background? No worries! The object's name can appear next to it, at the top of the screen, or you can turn the feature off.

Progress (08/2011)
Backgrounds: 100%
Animations: 100%
Scripting: 100%
Puzzles: 100%
Music: 100%
Sound Effects: 100%
Beta Testing: 100%
Intro/Ending Cinematics: 100%

Game includes: Fun puzzles, full-sized animated dialog portraits, shameless references to vintage adventure games, all original graphics, sliding menu bar, hotspots that let you know they're hotspots, quirky humor including short jokes, and fuzzy purple slippers.  Release Date: Saturday, August 20, 2011.

08/16/2011 Update:

Beta Testing Complete

Thanks to all those who have volunteered their beta testing services.  All bugs have been fixed!  A few additional sound effects still need to be added, along with the final little bits on the ending cartoon...  All should be done by the end of the week!

Thanks to everyone for waiting so patiently and for so many supportive comments on the forums.  I hope you all enjoy the game!

For the previous updates, including Generic Man(R), visit my blog.

As part of my game, you must open a sweet locking mechanism, which includes a number of animations.  To the side of the mechanism, I'm trying to put a GUI with such helpful buttons as "TIPS," "DIFFICULTY," "RESET," and "EXIT."  The problem is that all GUI functions are automatically defined in the global script, and I want this GUI to affect things specific to the room, like animations, room-specific functions (ie "reset_Lock()"), and the character changing rooms.

I've tried defining the GUI in the room script (AGS failed to find the commands).

I've tried calling room functions in the global script (AGS failed to find the functions).

More creatively, I've tried setting up a global variable (LockGUIClicked), which gets changed by the GUI in the global script. Back in the room, I've got a repeatedly_execute_always() function that calls up room functions whenever that variable is changed.  But any room functions it calls crash the game because they contain animations (reset_Lock()) and other blocking commands (ChangeRoom), which repeatedly_execute_always doesn't like.

The only other option I can think of is making a bunch of objects in the room that LOOK like a GUI, with hotspots underneath that change the objects' images (like my GUI's PushedImage and MouseoverImage) as the mouse moves over.  But that would still probably not act the same.

Any suggestions?