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[Moderator note: This thread was split off from the Trumpmageddon discussion.]

I don't know if this is the end of American democracy but it will be the end of many people's lives.

What democracy?
American's literally only have two choices. That is not a democracy. That is a thinly veiled dictatorship.
At least here in Britain, there's a chance that a party other than Labour or the Conservatives can get in power (it's unlikely, but it's possible). And even if your chosen party doesn't win, if they get enough votes, then they get a voice.
But America? Don't confuse that for a democracy.

As for this being the end of many people's lives though, that is definitely true. But nobody ever cares, even in these cases.
Sure, people sometimes pretend to care. But they don't really. 
But that's a discussion for another day.

Democracy isn't about freedom anyway, it's about control just like every other form of government. It has been since the first democratic republic was established back in Ancient Rome, you know, that paragon of virtue and fairness where the leaders were regularly assassinated by their peers not long after getting into office, put their own family members to death to remove rivals, and the common people liked to watch women and children being ripped apart by wild beasts for entertainment because they wouldn't worship the right gods and dared to think a different way. That worked out well, didn't devolve into dictatorship or a collapse of civilization at all.

When Kamala Harris said the peaceful transfer of power was a hallmark of democracy in her concession speech I really had to laugh.

If 49% of the population votes for blue and 51% vote for red, that's not freedom of choice, because, first of all, your only choices to begin with are blue and red. What if you want purple or green or yellow or any other color of the rainbow?
And secondly, the 49% are forced to accept a president they did not vote for. That is not freedom, that is tyranny of the majority over the minority.

Panarchy is the only logical solution, and in this age there's no logical reason why we can't have it. Any group of individuals can come together and agree to live by a specific set of rules, even children can do that. We have enough resources to create as many micronations as we want. We could literally take all the trash from the ocean and turn them into floating islands and solve both the pollution problem and the population problem at the same time if we wanted to. Let each island choose their own form of government with their own leader and let the people choose which one they want to live in but we don't do that. Why?

Because it's not about freedom, it's about control. There's nothing logical about it. The elites have always wanted to exercise control over the masses, and they invent new ways to do so. "Democracy" is the chosen method of today. As @Danvzare said, people pretend to care, but they don't, not really. The best way to manipulate people is through their emotions, not logic or reason, because if we were in the habit of using our brains we'd realize we were born into a situation we never agreed to and we can also choose not to accept it because it doesn't truly benefit us.

But that sounds overwhelming to think about and I'm drained from living my cushy 21st century life with all its amenities and artificial stressors so I guess I'll just go back to playing video games and forget about it like everyone else. It's easier that way. I'll just leave it to the politicians to pass a bill to give us what we supposedly want that will be overturned next year. "Trump will fix it". Or was that Bob the Builder..?

I better keep my mouth shut or they'll start sending agents in here to influence public opinion in order to further "democracy" like they did when they infiltrated communities in Nicaragua during the Cold War. But don't worry, guys, it was all in the name of freedom.

I've finished a short demo game to submit for MAGS, and compiled it, but when I click on my .exe file, instead of running the game I've made, it runs the test text parser template I built my game on instead. What is going on? How do I get it to run the game I've been working on?

So I've always really loved the aesthetic of textmode art, but every time I've tried to create something in it I've always failed. It's always so much harder than it looks.
I decided to try tackling the challenge one more time after I watched a tutorial on Youtube.



Obviously unfinished. I am trying to stick to one color per scene. You can also see the GUI in progress here.
I started off with a design for how I wanted the "warp worm" to look, with writhing tentacles and words scribbled across it for shading, but actually doing it in a way that makes everything fit together using only characters is another thing. I spent a long time constructing the lava, which is ok but the perspective looks a little wonky, and then I got burnt out by the time I finished the legs of the worm. It is so difficult shaping things using text. I spend a lot of time trying to get the details right but then I also think when it looks too polished it loses that text art feel. I'm not sure how to embrace this style. Running out of time for this project.
I'm using lvllvl.com for the art editor.
Anybody familiar with textmode art or have any tips?

So, here I am plugging away at entering long lines of text into my list of text parser words 3 words at a time, when it suddenly dawned on me: Since the AGS engine only allows for up to 30,000 words in the text parser, and I have over 31,000 individual lines of text that I will be eventually entering in, I will inevitably run out of space in the future before I finish completing the series of games I am working on.
Which really zukz.

So my question is two fold.
First, how do I find a way around this limit?

Second, is there a better way to do this? Like, could you in theory make a module for a way to just copy and paste words into the parser a page at a time, and it would just automatically add them all? Because that would save me, like, 80% of my time creating this game.

[James Williams]

Project:
MvM: The Gap Theory

Details:
This is my first game to be released on AGS An 8 bit Lovecraftian Steampunk adventure RPG set in the Hadean Eon of primordial times, it follows the story of a guardian angel who must help rid the world of time travelling demons who are trying to change the future and create an alternate reality by breeding Warp Worms to create wormholes and enslave mankind. It has religious overtones, so if that makes you uncomfortable, this might not be a good fit. However, if you are so inclined, I plan to include an option that lets you play for the dark side, if you wish
The story has some somewhat disturbing scenes of hell and torture, so if horror bothers you, you might not like to work on this one.

Positions Available:
I need voice actors for the following roles:
James Williams, a main character. Paleontologist of the excavation which discovers the ancient time travelling technology and is abducted by the demonic entities. A stoic and observant Indiana Jones type character, I envisioned for this one a low, male monotone voice similar to Charles Reed in Sinking City.

Penelope Brighton Role taken. Penny is an alternate main character. Head archaeologist of the excavation, she is a fiery, stubborn skeptic who gets pulled into the wormhole with James and stuck in the hell dimension. For this one I want a woman with an English accent, similar to Eevee in The Mummy.

St. Pete Pete is the Guardian Angel that helps guide the player along the tutorial and tells the story in the beginning of the game. He's not a main character, but he's got a good chunk of dialog and a lot of personality. This character was inspired by Whistler from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I was hoping for a similar accent and voice, though I've also considered tweaking him, possibly making him have sort of an Israeli accent. It is hard to find examples of the Whistler character since he only appears very briefly for two episodes, Becoming Part 1 and Part 2.

Lucifer/The Devil I want a sinister, low, generic narrator type voice for the devil. A good example of this is the narrator in The Cave.

Cupid I want somebody who can impersonate Wally from Monkey Island for this role as that is my inspiration for this character.

Generic Voice Acting I have several other characters that I need voice acting for, just regular people, angels, demons, etc. Anybody who is interested, let me know.


That's it for voice acting for now. I will add positions if they come up. Let me know if you are interested and include some examples of your work, and I can message you the script.

In addition to voice actors, it would help to have somebody who knows how to make some quality animations for cutscenes. I want to make pop art/graphic novel style animated cutscenes, as well as smaller animations like having vines growing around the borders of manuscripts and such. I do have some basic knowledge of animating things, but I could use somebody who's more proficient at making smoother animations than I am.

Other than voice actors and animators, I primarily would like to work on this on my own. However, recognizing that this may be a monumental task for a beginner, I am open to consider any other help anybody feels inclined to offer, and would be very appreciative of any such offers or advice. Since I am trying to improve my art and coding skills, I would like to do the majority of the work, but I do have a lot of artwork and programming to complete, so if you're interested in creating some 8 bit pixel art for fantasy creatures and such, let me know. I can give you something.

One thing that I am currently struggling with is thinking of ideas for puzzles that would be interesting. I want to make something original and not just another adventure game puzzle. I like the idea of incorporating the text parser, booby traps, codes, riddles, and other sorts of puzzles, all related to the seven deadly sins and temptations. For more information, send me a PM if you would like to contribute. I can give you more details of the storyline.

UPDATE:
I have had a new idea for the game, and now I am also asking for POETS who would like to write some lines of poetry to be used in the game. Again, the theme is the seven deadly sins. Thank you.

Deadline:
Ongoing, planning to expand the game and release several episodes.

Comments:
Interested parties can reply to this thread or contact me via PM.

I've been literally kept up at night trying to figure out what type of style I want in my RPG. There were so many different styles that appealed to me that I didn't know where to begin.

Then I saw this.
http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

Mark Ferrari did a lot of the art for LucasArts back when 8 bit games were made, and he used this technique called "color cycling". I've always loved that style of pixel art, but had no idea that this kind of thing was possible with it-the play of movement and light in these is just genius. Instead of using seperate frames for each animation, you just change the color palette so that the pixels change color and look like movement.

Now I'm certain I would like to focus on making this style of art.

There are other amazing things he did with it it, too, that he called "palette shifting", like using the same background to make several different scenes just by changing the palette-With one image, he could create a forest, a mountain range, a cloudscape, and a city, all with day and night cycles.

Spoiler: Longwinded philosophical rant

Spoiler

Older technologies, like typewriters, pixel art, pen and ink and stick and poke appeal to me more than the more "efficient" tools at our disposal.

And I think the reason that is is because, for a naturally more "impulsive" personality like myself, speed tends to get messy.

In contrast, these tools force me to slow down and really think about my every move.

Every dot becomes deliberate, a small detail making up a larger picture. Nothing is without purpose or meaning.

And that is what I am trying to capture in my work, whether it be writing, art, tattoos or games: I want to convey meaning and purpose behind every insignificant detail.

That's more than just an aesthetic, it's a philosophy, somewhat akin to what the Symbolist art movement believed, or Pavel Filonov with his analytical art method of working from the particular to the general, and what impressionism achieved with its simplicity portraying larger scenes, what pointillism does, and what Rasquachismo also seeks to do with its motto of "Do the most with the least" through recycling old trash into beauty-that nothing should be without meaning, purpose and deliberation, every dot matters. And now I finally understand why each of those art movements appealed to me, no matter how different their style, because they all have this in common.

And I like that as a founding principle not just of art but of my whole worldview. It's symbolic of a greater truth, I believe-that although we are all very small, we all matter on some grand scale, each dot taking part in the whole.

I love to be challenged as an artist, as a human being, and be resourceful with what little I have to work with. I find that motivates me more than when I have everything at my disposal and find that I am discontent with what I have because it will never be "enough". That's more defeating than any limitation placed upon me, because it dashes hope.

Hope is what drives us to create, to imagine something better and feel the joy in that anticipation. The idealism of Romanticism and Fantasy appealed to me because that kind of perfection is not real; it only exists in our imaginations. I think that's why the surrealism of artwork and the escapism of video games give us this sort of otherworldly feeling of peace, especially nostalgic ones that bring us back to our childhoods when we had the kind of unrelenting hope of a future wide ahead of us. No matter how boring or lame our childhoods might have been, they were rarely without hope, without dreams of something better.

//end of philosophical rant

[close]

What do you think about 8 bit pixel art?

Since my game is centered in the clouds and deals with supernatural entities, and currently I'm using the older version of AGS to create it, it's a natural fit to make extensive use of these color cycling techniques. I know it's not recommended to use 8 bit to make games because of the limitations and problems running them with newer computers, and I do like the idea of being able to implement more detailed fantasy art into the game (maybe when you look at a sprite, or when you are in dialog or battle mode), so I'm wondering whether I can/should do this in 32 bit somehow, or find some workaround way to implement certain scenes that are in true color.

Have you ever tried to make anything with color cycling before? Has anybody actually done something like this in AGS?

EDIT: Here's a video where he explains in detail how he achieves these effects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcJ1Jvtef0

I am revamping my combat system in my RPG. I am using the Pixel Perfect Collision module, and I currently have it rigged so that when an enemy touches the player, they receive damage. What I want is for the player to have to attack the enemy before they touch them. I have them equip a sword and use it on the enemy to attack, but I want it so that they have to get close enough before they can use it-but not close enough for them to touch the enemy, thus incurring damage. Just within range so they can swing the sword and hit the target. How do I script this? (P.S. Right now I'm using AGS 2.72)

Hello,
So I'm working on making an RPG-like style game in AGS, and I'm done (hopefully) with almost all the tricky parts of coding, but I have one last snag left that is overwhelming me.

I'm trying to write the battle system, which is a little bit unconventional. Instead of Health or Stamina or any of the typical stats you find in most RPGs, the characters have either Vices or Virtues. There are 30 of each, with 30 that correspond to it on the enemy team-for instance, Greed/Charity, Fear/Faith, etc.

To defeat your opponent, you need to enter specific verses or spells into the text parser. Each time one is entered, it decreases the relevant Vice or Virtue by 1. Each character has a specific number of each Vice or Virtue, and once it hits 0 the character dies. So, for instance, if you encounter a Demon with a value of 4 Fear and 3 Greed, you need to recite 4 verses about having Faith and 3 verses about having Charity to defeat it.

Anyway, I thought I figured it out, but the script is not doing anything when I trigger the 3 dialog scripts. What am I doing wrong?

Code: ags

// room script file
int Fear;

function on_event(int event, int data)
{
    if (event == eEventEnterRoomBeforeFadein)
    {
        aCantrell_manic_dance.Play();
        int ran=Random(2);
if (ran==0) cAngel2.ChangeRoom(5); Fear += 1;
if (ran==1) cEgo.ChangeRoom(5); Fear += 2;
if (ran==2) cDemon.ChangeRoom(5); Fear += 3;
    }
}

function repeatedly_execute()
{ if (Fear == 0)

  {
    cAngel2.ChangeRoom (1); cEgo.ChangeRoom (1); cDemon.ChangeRoom (1);  Display("The demon has been defeated!"); 
} 
}

And the dialog script:

Code: ags

// Dialog script file
@S  // Dialog startup entry point
Angel: &1 "In the Beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth."
    Display("The demon writhes in agony!"); 
    GiveScore(1);
    bGenesis1V1.Visible = true; 
    Fear -= 1;
stop

(plus 3 other scripts like it)

Also, how do I get my cursor to animate or change when it's over a button, and not just over hotspots? I can't find the answer anywhere.

Thank you.

Hello,
I am working on an RPG where you have to exorcise or summon demons using a memorized scripture or incantation.
I am using the Text Parser template as the base for my game. The idea being that the player has to type in the required verses to make the character say them, which causes damage to the demon.
The problem I am having is; the text parser is only one line long, and the verses are often much longer than what will fit in the box.
I redesigned the parser GUI to be much bigger, and adjusted the font size, and changed the resolution of my game, but there still isn't enough space in the box for some of the longer verses to fit, unless I shrink the font way too small to read comfortably.
And as I understand it, there's no way to make a line break in the parser without submitting the entry. There was a LineBreak module, but the link is broken.
Is there a way around this, or do I just have to work with what I have?

I would prefer there to be a way to type out a full paragraph, instead of a single line. If it were possible, it would be nice to be able to type out the verse and have the character say it as it's being typed... but I'm just thinking of ways to make the text fit. I wonder if there was a way to make the font shrink as I type more? So it is legible unless I start running out of room?
Anyway, I am sure I will have more questions as I go. I am a newbie at this. 
Your input is much appreciated.

EDIT: I think I solved the problem, by painstakingly downloading free fonts until I found one that would fit into the text parser better without losing legibility. However, I would still like to hear any suggestions anyone may have about how they'd go about implementing this general idea. Thanks