Topics

Hello! I'm making a Task list with a listbox. When a task is completed, a button with an image of a line appears on top of it, marking it as completed. For each of the tasks, I have an invisible button image ready. This works fine:

Code: ags

function RemoveTaskListItem(String nameofentry) {
  int index;
  while (index < lstTaskList.ItemCount) {
    
    // Button with a line appears 
    if(lstTaskList.Items[index].CompareTo(nameofentry) ==0) {
      if(index ==0) btnTaskList_0.Visible = true;
      if(index ==1) btnTaskList_1.Visible = true;
      if(index ==2) btnTaskList_2.Visible = true;
    }
    else index ++;
  }
}

However, I'm trying to make it a bit more fancy and add categories to it: There is the topic and maybe three tasks under it. Now it can happen that a new task is added inside a topic, using InsertItemAt command. That will move all the listbox items under it nicely, but it will break the button placement, if there already is a completed task below.

My question is how to link my button images to the Listbox items? When the order of the list changes, the buttons placement needs to be updated, but I can't really figure out a good way to do this.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Hello!

I looking into using several colors in a line of text, highlighting key words and effects. Is this possible at all?
I'm experimenting with text labels and the dialog system. The point is to do something a bit similar than in Slay the Spire and many other RPG's:



I'm using abstauber's CustomDialogGui 1.9, which is great, but it doesn't offer that kind of functionality with colors afaik.

When searching the topic, I found SSH's Hypertext module, which is supposed to do this, but the module is very outdated, and doesn't seem to work that well anymore.

Thanks for any help! 

[AVAILABLE ON]

Dreams in the Witch House is a genre-bending mix of point and click adventure and a survival RPG. Guide Walter Gilman, as he prepares to face the dreaded May-Eve witch ritual in the legend-haunted city of Arkham.
Choose your own approach and reveal the secret of the Witch House before it's too late.

AVAILABLE ON Steam AND GOG

Features:
- A unique mix of survival RPG and a classic point and click adventure game
- Around 10 hours of playtime
- High replay value, many of the elements are easy to miss on first playthrough
- Day / evening / night - cycles and changing weather
- Several endings depending on player's actions
- Original soundtrack by genre favourite Troy Sterling Nies (The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in the Darkness)

Developed by Atom Brain Games
Published by Bonus Stage Publishing

Based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft

[Display]

Hello!

Is there a way to insert an image into text (more specifically into TextWindow)?
I have a tutorial messages in my game that simply use the Display command. It works well, but I would like to insert an image of a keyboard button into it (rather than use a letter).

I don't want to use a custom GUI for the tutorial messages, because the amount of text changes a lot in them. Display and the TextWindow works well adjusting to the right size. I tried playing around with the Dynamicsprite, but couldn't create the sprite on top of the TextWindow.

So is this possible at all, without using custom GUIs for the messages? Thanks!

Hello!

A tricky Linux related question: One player reported that his mouse was frozen when playing the demo. The demo release was for Windows, but apparently he was able to run other AGS games through something called Proton. Here's the message:

Tried all three render modes (with OpenGL I can see and move my system cursor while the games one is still stuck in the middle of the screen), windowed mode and the setting that locks the mouse cursor to the window.
To no avail.

I'm running the game through Proton under Linux btw, so as long as no others have this problem…

I could run all my other AGS based games fine though, no such problem.

This is the first time I've heard of this problem. As the demo is made for Windows and I don't have access to Linux, it's difficult for me to offer any assistance. This is a long shot, but does anybody have similar experiences, or could offer any advice? Thanks!

Edit: Marked as solved!

[Project:]

Project:
Dreams in the Witch House DEMO - A cosmic horror adventure game mixed with RPG elements, based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft.

Details:
I'm looking for around 5 brave testers to do some last-minute testing of Dreams in the Witch House Demo. The demo is almost completed and now I'm hunting for bugs, typos, and other nasty things. General comments are also welcome.
If you are able to do several playthroughs, that would be awesome! Estimated length of the demo is around 2 hours.

Requirements:
PC and Steam app installed (I will send you a Steam Key for the demo)

Deadline:
This is a last-minute testing and it should be done by May 27th at the latest. The sooner, the better!

Contact:
If you are interested, and have time to test and comment, please send me a Private Message.

Thanks! 

EDIT: Help found!

Hello!

I have a dynamic GUI label that shows various information, and the text and the text width will change during the gameplay. I would like to add a graphic symbol (a button) at the end of the label text. But because the text width varies, the symbol's X position should be adjusted as well. Otherwise there will be ugly overlapping or a too long gap. So how can I place the symbol directly at the end of the text?

I tried to use GetTextWidth command to count the characters from the label, but got nowhere. Is there a way to do this? Thanks! 

Hello there!

Eons ago I posted here a trailer for our Lovecraftian short horror film "Sound from the Deep". It had a good run at film festivals, and we won over 10 awards, and got to travel around the world with it.

Now it's finally found its place on YouTube:

Have a look, and spread the word! Curious to hear your comments, too.

I have a small problem with couple of my animations. 

When my character's scaling is not 100 %, and I want to animate him using a loop that is bigger than his defaul sprite, there will be a slight, but an annoying scaling offset. It can be seen more clearly if the animation is only for the hand, or head, and rest of the body stays still. The effect is that the character jumps about 1/2 pixels left or right.

Is there anyway to avoid this? In certain cases, the animation loop has to be bigger than the character sprite, and if the character is scaled up or down, the problem will show up. I found out that I can fix it a little bit by moving my sprite to the other end of the frame when drawing it, so that the action fits to the default sprite size. Then I used LockViewOffset to center it again in the game. But even then, I can notice a slight jolt or a jump in the sprite.

Is there anyway to make make the transition absolutely flawless if the scaling is not 100% and there's a difference in the loop size?

I tried to search older topics for this, but couldn't find them. Any help is appreciated!

I have a sound issue connected to the System.Volume. Here's my situation:

I have a simple sound system that has adjustable sliders for Main Volume and Music Volume. Main volume is connected to System.Volume and Music Volume to eAudioTypeMusic.

Everything seems to work during the game. Problems start when I have adjusted the Main Volume and load a save game. Here's two different scenarios:

1. I lower the Main Volume, save the game and exit. I start the game again, load the save, and the Main Volume is playing at default value, eventhough the slider is still set to a low value.
2. I lower the Main Volume, save the game, adjust the Main Volume slider to default again, then load the save. The volume is playing at the default value, but the slider is set to a low value.

So I want the System.Volume to be always using the values from the Main Volume slider. Currently it resets to a default volume when loading a game. The Music Volume works fine, it's always playing at the same value as the Music Volume slider, even if I exit the game and start it again.

I've tried all sorts of tricks to set the System.Volume to the correct value using the eEventRestoreGame. I even tried to save the System.Volume to a config.dat-file. I think I got it right, but it had no effect, the System.Volume was still reset after loading a game. The System.Volume seems to work nicely otherwise, but is it a bad idea to use it to control the master volume? How can I make it to remember the saved values?

[ShakeScreenBackground]

Hi! I have an issue that has been bugging me for ages, and finally decided to ask.

So I want to create a shaking screen effect. ShakeScreenBackground is just what I want, except it creates an ugly black border on top of the screen. I have some extra space at the top of my room (it's a very high scrolling room), so I want that part to be revealed, instead of the black, empty area.

I've undersood that it's a constraint of the engine, and that I should animate the viewport instead. I tried, but didn't have much luck.  I tested it with something like this:

Code: ags

Screen.Viewport.Y +=5;

It too created the black bar on top of the screen, eventhough my room should still continue there. 

So what would be the best way to achieve the shaking screen effect? I'm using the Smoothscroll module, but I tried disabling it and got still the same results. Would the new camera system help?

Hi!

This might be a very simple question, but I couldn't find an answer for it, and I want to do it right.

I have menu screen that comes up when I press "ESC" key. My code is simply something like this:

Code: ags

if(keycode ==eKeyEscape) {
  if(!gControl.Visible) gControl.Visible = true;
  else gControl.Visible = false;
}

Everything works, unless player holds down the ESC key. Then the menu screen constantly switches on and off, and I dont want that. The menu screen should appear when the player releases the ESC key. The player needs to press it again to close it. Holding down the key shouldn't have any effect, pressing it should be like when pressing a gui button, the action happens when the button is released.

What would be the simplest way to achieve this?  Thanks!

Hi!

I'm working on a small alchemy puzzle. I'm using a separate GUI and a inventory window that has all the ingredients that the player has collected (it's assigned to a dummy character). I want the inventory items act like buttons, and have the button pressed graphic.

My problem is that my custom button down graphic always activates too late, it happens when I release the mouse button. I want it to act like a GUI button, so that when I click it (and keep the mouse button pressed), the graphic changes instantly, but nothing else happens yet. Then when I release the button, the action registers, and the button graphic changes back.

I hope you got my point! This sounds like trivial thing, but it's much more enjoyable to click things that act like buttons.

Any ideas?

An audio related question (names and situations have been changed to avoid spoilers!):

Let's say that I have a blacksmith smithing with a hammer in a long, scrolling room . I want that:

1. The hitting sound plays precisely at the moment of impact (I can do this with the Linked audio property, or in the View editor).
2. That the sound volume increases as player approaches the blacksmith, and decreases when player walks away (I can do this with SetRoomLocation-command, and give the sound X and Y room coordinates).

The problem is that I can't seem to combine these two methods. I've spent hours trying to make the animation and the sound match each other, but the sound always starts to drift and lose the sync, which is no good. And it seems impossible to use Linked audio property with an audio channel.

My script is basically something like this, it works except the sync is off:

Code: ags

cBlacksmith.Lockview(HIT_HAMMER);
cBlacksmith.Animate(1, 2, eRepeat, eNoBlock); 

AudioChannel Hammer_impact = aHammer_impact.Play(eAudioPriorityNormal, eRepeat);
Hammer_impact.SetRoomLocation (800, 180);

So is there a third way to do this, or is this impossible?

Any help is appreciated, I'm so close getting this thing working!

Hi all, a quick question:

How can I lock mouse location to scrolling room coordinates? I'm using the Flashlight module by monkey_05_06 (the flashlight is following mouse), and it works fine. Except that I have a scrolling room, and when player interacts with a hotspot, and walks (blocking walk) to it's location, the room is still scrolling, and the mouse/flashlight moves away from the hotspot. Then the player starts to describe the object, even though it's covered in darkness and the flashlight is pointing somewhere else.

I tried to change the flashlight mode to follow character when clicking the hotspot, but it updates after when the blocking actions are over, and it's too late then. So the best option seems to somehow lock the mouse/cursor to the hotspot's room coordinates, so that it would stay put, even when the room is scrolling. I would release it again, when the player actions are over. But I've had no success with that...

Any help is appreciated!

[Trailer:]

Ok, I'm advertising a bit here, but as this is closely related to the game I'm making (The Witch House), I decided to post in this thread.

In 2017 me and my friend directed a short film called Sound from the Deep that is inspired by the mythology created by H.P. Lovecraft. The film is about a research ship, that is searching for natural resources in the Arctic Ocean. The crew picks up a strange sound coming from somewhere near the North Pole, and they start to follow it, hoping that it would lead them to a gas deposit. And bad things happen.

It's not a straight adaptation, but there are similarities with the At the Mountains of Madness short story. It's been received very well, and won nine awards so far, including the Best Short Film and the Audience Award at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

So just wanted to share this dark secret with you and show that my interest in H.P. Lovecraft is pretty serious and probably incurable.

Trailer:

The movie is also included in H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival's Best of 2017 DVD, and if you are interested, you can buy it here: https://arkhambazaar.com/films/h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-best-of-2017-collection-dvd/

And we are also in Facebook, where we post news about the film: https://fi-fi.facebook.com/soundfromthedeep/

How can I start my object animation from the same frame where I stopped it? For example, let's say I have an animated spinning wheel that loops repeatedly with NoBlock on. When I click it, it stops instantly in it's current frame. This is great. Now when I click it again using the "Animate"-command, it jumps to the first frame of the loop, which is bad. I want it to continue from the same frame where it stopped.

Plan B would be to wait that the loop is finished and stop it then, but it's not what I'm really looking for. I want the actions to be instantaneous.

Couldn't find any answer for this, so any help is welome!

Hi all!

I have in my game a minigame which mechanics works basically like this: There are four spheres on the screen, red, blue, green and yellow.
When the minigame starts, the spheres lit up for a second in a random order, for example blue, green, red, yellow. Then the player needs to click the spheres in the same sequence. If the sequence is the same as shown before, you win, otherwise you lose.

I have already coded this few years back, and it works, but the code is not that good (I was just starting with AGS then). Now I'm plan to modify the minigame, so that you can advance to next stage, where the spheres appear more quickly, and the number of the spheres will also grow. So I would like to have a nice, clean code that I can adjust quite easily.

So what would be the simplest, cleanest way to code this? What is a good method of creating random sequences, where you shuffle certain objects to certain order?

Thanks in advance!

[WISHLIST NOW!]

Whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman did not know. - H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House

WISHLIST NOW!

STEAM: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1902850/Dreams_in_the_Witch_House/
GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/dreams_in_the_witch_house

Story :

Walter Gilman has just moved to Arkham and is starting his studies at the Miskatonic University. The Dombrowski's boarding house where he resides has a bad reputation, but Walter doesn't mind the old rumours.
Until the dreams start. Can Walter hang on for two months and suffer through the dreaded May-Eve when witches roam the earth and the slaves of Satan gather for nameless rites and deeds?

Description:

The Witch House is an urban survival adventure game, where the player has to survive for two months, and face the May-Eve night. The game combines RPG elements to classic adventure game genre.
The player can choose to explore the old rumours, read the forbidden books at Miskatonic University, or concentrate on studies and keeping Walter in a good physical and mental state.

Based on the short story "Dreams in the Witch House" by H.P. Lovecraft.

Features:

- Open world sandbox meets traditional point and click adventure game
- Set in the late 1920's Arkham city
- Advancing time and day/evening/night - cycles
- RPG elements: Money, health, sanity, hunger and several other character states 
- Random events, city activities and encounters
- Several endings depending on player's actions
- 320 x 180 pixel graphics
- Two click-interface
- Music by Troy Sterling Nies (Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in the Darkness)

Release date: February 16th 2023

Developer: Atom Brain Games

Publisher: Bonus Stage Publishing

Teaser Trailer:

https://youtu.be/Z889XCE-Zq0

Screenshots:

Hi!

I'm suffering from gamma issues: when I test my game in fullscreen mode and I load/restart the game, gamma changes to more bright. This does not happen in windowed mode.

I have read previous posts about this issue, but didn't find a clear answer how to fix it. Apparently it has something to do with graphics card? And every game suffers from it???

I'm using AGS 3.3.4. and building a 320 x 200 resolution game with Direct3D. When using DirectDraw this problem seems to go away, but I need Direct3D.

I would really like to fix this, because basically it messes up the graphics of the game. One idea I read from old post was to make the game do a save when you start a new game, and instantly load it again. This way you would never use the "correct" starting gamma, but instead the lighter one. Then you would only use one gamma in the game. Is this the only way to fix this?

Any help & advice is more than welcome!