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So I lost my game to a weird "root element missing" error. The game won't open. I have a backup but it's missing a complex dialog I was just working on. I can see where the room scripts and such are in the the corrupted game's file folders, but I haven't uncovered where the dialogs are hiding yet.

I can redo the dialog but I'd like save a few hours if possible and just copy and paste the dialog into my backup.

Greetings, AGS!

I finally finished Sea Monster X, an old school adventure game and my second stab at a video game: DOWNLOAD HERE

It's free, at least. I'm not sure if it's a ton of fun to play, but it's not something I'm embarrassed of having made. I think it was a respectable effort for a single person. Hopefully it'll feel like more than one person worked on it.

A little advertising spiel from the game page:

But why... why did we care so much about Sea Monster X? Anybody that played the demo that was released in select Regina, Saskatchewan bars back in the 1980s can tell you why: It's a funny, one-of-a-kind game with an endearing story. The graphics were truly unparalleled for the time period, a forerunner to the popular pixel art style employed in many modern games. And the soundtrack - now remastered in glorious HD -  is a real toe-tapper.

What are you waiting for? It's free... unless you want to pay for it. Experience a supernatural beach town and find out what you're made of. Interact with dolphins and discover buried treasure.

So I've been working on Sea Monster X by myself for quite awhile. Only a few people have played it. I'm not really sure if it's any good. The idea behind the game was for it to be like a long episode of a show like Gravity Falls that you could actually play. The puzzles are supposed to be fairly simple and intuitive, though one near the end might be a bit too convoluted. We'll find out if you play the game, I guess.

Sea Monster X is basically finished, except for any bugs/mistakes/typos I might've missed (and I'm sure those exist). I would like to add a little more content, but first I want to see if I even have something enjoyable on my hands. Otherwise maybe I'll cut my losses and stick with what I already made, which again... is essentially a complete game.

OK, I'd say it's 90% complete in all aspects.

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/LzfXE6P.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/FGJMSh9.png[/imgzoom]

DOWNLOAD: https://ufile.io/8bc48

So yep, I've got those aspect ratio blues, my friends.

So for some reason I made my game's resolution 320 X 200, which I'm now fearing was a big mistake. See, I'm making a "retro" game and it actually looks great when I run it on my desktop at full screen with max round multiplier. The borders are minimal and the graphics are sharp. The trouble, however, is that my desktop has a weird 8:5 aspect ratio (1440 X 900). When I run my game at full screen on a monitor with a 16:9 ratio using the max round multiplier and the nearest-neighbor filter, the border around the game is HUGE, to the extant that it'd probably annoy your typical gamer (though it's still readable and playable, at least on the 15.6" monitor I tested it on).

I mean, I can easily make the original The Binding of Isaac take up more screen real estate on 16:9 monitor than what I'm getting with max round multiplier - and that's not a good sign for me. I've tried every possible setting and haven't come up with a good solution. DirectDraw is too buggy on modern computers for me to want to use the Hqx filter (plus my game's aesthetic is highly reliant on sharp pixel graphics). Stretch to fit screen stretches and squeezes pixels in weird ways. Native resolution is blurry.

Oddly enough, I've had the most success running the game full screen at 1024 X 768. It takes up a decent amount of screen space on both my 8:5 and 16:9 monitors. And the blurriness - while still present - is at least minimized.

I'm starting to think that 1024 X 768 is the poison I'll have to drink at this point, sans completely redoing the graphics. And I wouldn't even know what resolution is better anyway. It's all really bummed me out, because I've put a ton of work into this game (art, story, original music, etc.), and I honestly think it's shaping up OK outside of this resolution issue.

So I guess what I'm wondering is... ("FINALLY!" you scream) is there maybe an alternative solution? When I ran the game at full screen at the native resolution in AGS Draconion for example, I was able to use that engine's scanline filter to make the blurriness less of an issue while also adding a nice retro touch. But that was a DirectDraw filter, which rules it out for me. Plus, I would've liked to change the appearance of the scanlines a bit, but I'm just a glorified script kiddie/monkey. I can do things that are explained well in the manual or in the demo of a module, but that's about it.

So yeah, that's where I'm at. Hoping for a miracle, I guess.

I must be the world's biggest idiot, because I seemingly can't find a real explanation for how to add music. Just add "aYourmusictitle.Play()" they say.

OK... and? I try stuff like this:

Code: ags

function room_FirstLoad()
{
  aBeaks.Play();
}

And nothing ever happens. I've tried Room_AfterFadeIn. Everything. And yes - I have "aBeaks" in my music folder.

I want to flip my desk over right now. Why is this basic feature so obscure? How dumb am I?