Topics

Has anyone else here ever had a problem where they try to go to this website and get the message about not being able to reach the server--i.e., the message you get when you type in a non-existant address?

For some reason, that has started happening on my home computer (I'm using a different computer now), and it is ALWAYS like that.  I can't get to anything that uses the bigbluecup server--I can't get on www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk, I can't download games from other links if bigbluecup is part of the address--it's as if, for my computer only, the website just doesn't exist.

I use a wireless DSL connection.  My room-mates use it too, and they can get to this site just fine.  I can always bring it up fine if it's on some other computer, just not my own.  I have double-checked the address many many many times and I am certain it is correct.

Can anyone tell me what the problem is?

This is not essential for my game but it would be nice to be able to do...

Right now my game is set up so that it can create up to 999 external files for use as pages in a journal system.  Since it is possible for a player to "rip out" pages via a special button, it would be nice to be able to delete files created with the File.WriteString command.  However I can find no way to do this.

Is it possible to delete game-created files from inside the game, or is this functionality unavailable for security?

I'm noticing two problems with the textbox I created for my game.

(1) I want the player to be able to enter up to 90 characters, which means that I'd like to have the words wrap around.  Unfortunately it appears that textboxes will not allow you to do this.  Is there some other way to either get the textbox to word-wrap, or to provide another means for the player to enter text that DOES word-wrap?

(2) I've never used textboxes in AGS before, but I'm noticing that the typing rate is incredibly slow.  In the time it takes me to type 6 letters, AGS has only displayed the first one.  It takes 5 or six seconds before a full line of text shows up on the screen.  Maybe this is just my coputer?  Is there some way to make this work faster?  Here's all of what I assume the relevant information would be:

game resolution & color: 800 x 600, 32 color debth
GUIs visible: 2. The first has 14 items, the second (with the textbox) has 2.
music playing: NONE!
repeatedly_execute: Just one if/then statement to check if a specific bool variable is true, and declare it false if it is.

I'm running a 1.0 Ghz machine so maybe that's the problem right there.  Considering I have no music playing at all, I can't imagine how slow the text will enter once the music is actually playing!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Ok, I had this idea a while back--posted here about it, in fact--about a continually growing adventure game where expansions could be downloaded for it and run from the main game.  Initially I'd intended to have the expansions each given their own subdirectory because each would need to have its own MUSIC.VOX.  However, I also need the expansions to be able to return to the original game--I'd intended to do this via another RunAGSGame command that would call the original game.

Then I found out that there's no way to go "up a directory" with RunAGSGame.  So, the only way for the game and the expansions to BOTH be able to run each other is to have them in the same directory.

Now I have my original problem--I need the games to have different music, and I'd rather not have the music as separate mp3 files.  I want it to be compiled somehow so that it is only accessible through the game.

Bottom line: I want to make it so that one AGS program can start any of several others, and that the others can all start the original, and all of them have separate music which is only accessible through the game.  Am I asking for the impossible, or is there a way to accomplish this?

[MOST IMPORTANT]

One of the features I want to implement in my game is an in-game journal that the player can add new text to and edit existing text in.  I am having trouble figuring out how to do this.  I want the journal to work similar to a word processor, so that clicking somewhere within the text field positions a cursor there and the player can then delete text already written, insert new text, etc.  The following features I want to include, but am not sure how to do so:

(1) Player can enter an entire "page" of text.  In other words, the current max string length (unless it is changed in v2.71 which I have yet to download) is too short.  I need a way to have longer strings, or else have one string merge seemlessly with another somehow, or something.

(2) Player can click anywhere on a current journal page and edit the text already there, delete it, or add new text, just as if they were using a word-processor.

(3) Player can add as many new pages as they want to, possibly via a "add page" button on the journal.

(4) (MOST IMPORTANT) Journal can be accessed from more than one AGS game, since this game utilizes more than one file with continuing downloadable expansions.  I want the player to be able to take the same journal with them from one expansion to another.  I am guessing this means the journal will need to output to some kind of external file somehow.

(5) Strings / words / sentences do not have to necessarily have to wrap from page to page, but if there is an easy way to do this it'd be nice to implement it.  In other words, if the player could just keep typing at the end of a page and have the text automatically continue onto the next page, that would be a nice convenient feature (but not worth it if it would take a ton of effort to make it happen).

Ok, so I'm trying to make the gui turn on and off with the press of the ESC key.  I wrote code that I thought would work, but it only works halfway--the ESC key turns the gui on but not off.  Here's the code:

  if (keycode == 27) {
    if (gMaingui.Visible == true) {
      gMaingui.Visible = false;
    }
    else {
      gMaingui.Visible = true;
    }

This is in the on-key-press function.  The gui itself is a Popup Modal, does that disable keypresses or something?

I'm probably doing something very dumb or overlooking something very obvious.  Any help would be appreciated.

So I am trying to get the hang of this whole DynamicSprite thingy, and I'm left with several questions here.

First of all, I am daunted by the help-file's insistance that I delete the DynamicSprite as soon as I am "done using it".  One of the things I want to do in my game is create an area where the player can actually use their own custom picture in the game--specifically, there is a desk in the game with a picture frame on it, and that frame depicts the picture "MyPicture.jpg" or something like that.  I want the pictureframe object to load up MyPicture.jpg when the program starts and then keep that graphic for the remainder of the game.  If I use a DynamicSprite to import the picture, then tell the object to change its graphic to the DynamicSprite's graphic, should I then delete the DynamicSprite or not?  If I delete it, will it screw up the pictureframe object?  If I don't delete it, will it mess up the game's memory somehow?

Secondly, I want to include functionality in the game where the player can press a button (say F3, or Enter, or something) and the game will take a screenshot (just as it would do when saving) and EXPORT that screenshot to a file outside the game (Screen1.jpg or something).  Furthermore I need the game to be able to recognize if there is already a file by the desired name so that it will use a different name to avoid overwriting--i.e. if Screen1.jpg already exists, the game saves your screenshot as Screen2.jpg, or if that exists it saves it as Screen3.jpg, etc.  I see and understand DynamicSprite's screenshot function but what I can't figure out is (a) how to export the screenshot as an image file and (b) how to do the override-avoiding file-detection.

I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, and I'm wondering how it might be possible with AGS.

There was a great multiplayer adventure game called Uru Live that was based on the Myst storyline.  Every couple months, new content was added.  To me that's a fantastic idea.  (The original game has been shut down but there is a somewhat limited free version now called Until Uru: plasma.cyanworlds.com has more information).

Now I am wondering about the possibility of making something similar.  I think it would be really cool to create a free exploration-themed adventure game with AGS that could be downloaded by a lot of people.  But the best part is: Every now and then, new content (in the form of new areas to explore and solve puzzles in) would become available.  You could download the new content off of the website, install it to your previously installed game, and visit the new areas.  A great online community could be formed around this concept, too.

What I am wondering is how this could be done with AGS.  I've heard that there are patch-installation type programs out there, but as far as I know these are geared towards making version updates and one-time expansions possible.  What I want to do is something like this:

Bob downloads "KingMick World" (it would definitely have a better name, of course), plays and finishes the core game.  Then he goes to the website and sees that two new areas are available for download: Dungeon Land and Space Station Land.  Bob is more of a fantast person than a sci-fi person, so he decides to download Dungeon Land but not Space Station Land.  He downloads the Dungeon Land patch, which adds new rooms, characters, dialogs etc. to his copy of KingMick World, without adding any of Space Station Land.  A month later he comes back and sees that Mushroom Land is now available, so he downloads that, too.  The patch installs Mushroom Land and nothing else (it was created after both Dungeon Land and Space Station Land, but it does not add either one.).  He can still visit the areas in the core game, as well as the ones in his previously downloaded Dungeon Land.  The Mushroom Land patch does not change this, it only adds the new areas.

Is there a way to do this?  I can see a really great project if I can just figure out how to do this.  Anybody have any ideas?

I am sort of new to version 2.7 and I tried something which did not work, I can't figure out why. This is a very simple problem so I'm sure the solution is something I ought to already know but I honestly can't figure it out...

anyway, here's the problem.  I created an int at the beginning of the global script, knowing I would want to use this int throughout the entire game in various rooms. The GUIs recognize this variable just fine, it would seem.

The problem came when I tried to change the int from a room script. I got an error saying "Uknown token" or something like that, indicating my variable. Apparently the room script is not aware of this variable created at the beginning of the global script.

Can someone help me out? I realize I am probably being a dunce here...

I am wondering if there is a way to have AGS "know" how long it's been since the player last played the game, perhaps via the computer's clock?  It would be an intriguing feature of a game, I think, if the gameworld progressed in time at the same rate as the real world, so that when you come back to it, the same amount of time has passed there as the amount of time that has passed in the real world.  Is there anyway to have AGS do this?

And my second question is, if there IS a way to do this, is there any way around the obvious cheating method of simply moving your clock backward or forward so as to skirt around the game's timekeeping system?

If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

--Mick

I have been toying with the idea of a multiplayer AGS game ever since I first started playing Myst: Uru, a game originally designed to be a multiplayer puzzler-solving adventure.  I am wondering, has anyone else figured out possible ways to do this?  The players wouldn't necessarily have to be able to chat with each other at the same time but it would be fun if they could play different characters solving different parts of the adventure and leaving notes/journals for each other to read--basically an interactive adventure where you have to rely on clues from other players to solve your part too.

It's just an idea but right now I am stumped as to how it could be done.  If anyone else has any ideas, let me know.

--Mick

Hey, here I am with another dumb question.  This time I'm having trouble with a character staying transparent.  That is, it's not, and I want it to.  I'm using the newest version of AGS and I followed instructions I found in the help file for causing a character to "fade in" to the screen.  However, I only want the character to fade in halfway, and then remain at 50% transparency.  In the room's script I used a loop to fade the character in, then ran a couple of dialogs, then used another loop to fade him out.  What actually happened was this:  The character fades in to 50% as he is supposed to, but then he jumps immediately to a "no transparency" state, the dialog is run and then he just stays there.  I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.  Any ideas?

--Mick

So now that I found a place to host this huge sucker, it's time to promote it...

A very small demo is now available, the link is at the end of this post after the game info--please give feedback, it is my main reason for posting this here!

"The Affair at Northbank" will be my first AGS game.  Since I never like to do anything halfway, I am making it as good as I possibly can.  As a result, when it is finished the final product will probably be between 150 and 200 meg (and I thought I was having trouble finding a host for the demo...)

GAMEPLAY: I wanted to combine the best of two types of interfaces I always see in adventure games--the "King's Quest" 3rd-person style and the "Myst" 1st-person style.  The Affair at Northbank (A/N for short) is set in first-person but has a verb-cursor interface like King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, etc.  The cursor bar is located at the bottom of the screen.  When you have the "Go" cursor selected, the game operates like Myst, Riven, etc. in that the cursor changes its appearance based on where it is on the screen (i.e. turn left arrow, go forward arrow, etc.)  I'm telling you this so you won't get confused :-).  The cursor bar is down at the bottom of the screen rather than the top like the old Sierra games--somehow the bottom just seemed to make more sense for a 1st-person adventure.

STORYLINE: The storyline is based entirely on an old book-and-paper Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure I used to play with friends as a kid.  That adventure, for those interested, is called "Wizard's Challenge" and I have no idea if it can still be purchased.  Set in a fantasy universe similar to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and other similar stories, A/N is the story of a town which was founded by a famous Guild of Wizards.  When the leader of the Guild was banished from its tower, the rest of the Guild slowly crumbled and is now nonexistant.  Years later, the town is being plagued by the appearances of a strange, ghostly figure promising immortality...and killing anyone who refuses the offer.  Your character is a young apprentice mage who came to Northbank searching for the Guild.  When you learn how it has been disbanded, you end up staying to solve the mystery of the "Ghost Prince", a story closely tied with the old Guild history...

FEATURES:
*800 x 600 resolution
*Pre-rendered 3D graphics
*A face-making system so you can customize what the main character looks like.
*An interface that combines the best of traditional 1st-person and 3r-person adventure games
*Random background music while navigating the town, and specific music for apropriate parts of the game
*A very limited "combat" system
*Extremely nonlinear play--nearly all problems can be solved in more than one way, and there are several different paths to the end.
*A skill system reminiscent of games like "Quest for Glory".  Most puzzles can be solved either by use of an advanced skill, a special item, a spell, etc. etc.

OK, so that was all the promo stuff :-).  All that I am currently making available right now is atiny portion of the game ENVIRONMENT.  Please note before you download this that this is really not a game or even a game demo--it is a demonstration of the graphics, interface, face-maker and music that will be employed in A/N.  As you move around the town, you will find that there are many places where it looks like you can go, but when you click there, nothing happens.  This is because I have only included four or five locations in Northbank, since this file was already getting pretty huge.

The Face Maker is still buggy--the robes won't change color for some reason, I'm still trying to figure that out, and you cannot enter your character's name yet.  Once you pass the FaceMaker you will enter the game environment.

I really really *really* want feedback!  My main reason for submitting this is that I want to know what you guys think of the music, the interface, the graphics, etc.  I want to know that the game environment is going to be a good one before I make the full game.  Please feel free to offer both compliments and criticism.

Downloading instructions: In order to download this, you will need to download each file separately.  Sorry, it's the only way I could get it to work.  Also, the host I'm using apparently will not take exe files so I had to rename them .ex1.  After you download the two .ex1 files, rename them with the .exe extension and they should work.  NOTE: You do not need the music.vox file to play the game of course, but I picked the music out carefully and I think the environment really suffers without it.

Northbank.ex1 (10 MB)
winsetup.ex1 (48 KB)
acsetup.cfg (nil)
music.vox (15 MB)

Clicking the above links SHOULD download the files, let me know if it fails.

Whew, that was a lot of typing.  Looking forward to your feedback.

--Mick

[Does anyone know where the heck I can upload this thing?]

Hey, so I'm not sure if I can ask this in this forum or not, but of the options available it seemed like the best one.

I've just barely begun an AGS game that I wanted to get some feedback on, but the thing is already 25 meg.  I've been looking for a place on the internet to upload it but everywhere I go, it will not allow me to upload files that are this large.  The .exe file is about 10 meg and the music.vox file is about 15 meg.  I can find plenty of free web hosting places that allow more than 25 meg max room, but I can't find anything where the individual files are allowed to be more than a meg or two apiece.

So, my question is: Does anyone know where the heck I can upload this thing?

The game itself, when finished, will be massive--probably between 150 and 200 meg.  This little thing right now is just sort of an example of the game environment--you can move around a few locations and hear the music samples that play, and that's it.  I just wanted to hear some input on what people thought of the graphics, music, and interface.

Thanks to anyone who can answer my question, and sorry if this thread is in the wrong place!  As soon as I can upload this thing I'll make it available here on these forums, along with a lot more info about the game.

--Mick

I am wondering--if I were to create a game with AGS and people downloaded it, is it possible to create a patch later to fix bugs or an expansion to add new rooms and puzzles?  Obviously I could release the game a second time with bugs fixed or expansions already added in, but then they would have to download the whole thing all over again.  What I'm looking for is a way for people to download JUST the updates and add them to the previously installed game.  Does anyone know if there is a way to do this?

I am wondering if there is a way in AGS to access an object in one room from a script in another room--i.e. a way to retrieve the values of the object's custom properties.  I see many uses for this ability but looking through the Help files cannot find a way to do it.  Can anyone tell me if this is possible?

I tried to make an if/then statement in a game where I wanted to see if a particular GlobalString held a particular value.  I know that it did hold this value because I entered it myself and even had the program display the GlobalString to test it.  My code was similar to:

string bufstring;
GetGlobalString(1, bufstring);
if (bufstring == "1") {
  // various commands
}

However, this if-then statement continued to return as false even though I had entered "1" in a TextBox, had the TextBox text stored to the GlobalString, and even had the game Display the contents of the GlobalString to test it (I got a "1" in the display box, so I know the storing worked).  I know that the value went correctly to bufstring too, because I had the program Display the bufstring.  Yet, the if statement continually returned as false (i.e. the commands within the statement did not happen) and I am trying to figure out why.

I already fixed this particular game by using StringToInt to convert to an integer and using the if-then on the integer instead, and that worked.  However, I am trying to figure out how to solve this problem for future projects where I will want to use an if-then on a string value that cannot be converted to an integer.

I hope that was easy to understand.  I have a difficult time describing these things sometimes.  Can anyone tell me what the problem was with my code?  I am thoroughly confused.

One thing I need to be able to do frequently in the game I am creating is turn off options for topics from OTHER topics.  i.e. the player picks a specific option in Topic 1, and that leads him to Topic 2.  In Topic 2 he picks another option, and this one (a) sends him back to Topic 1 and (b) turns off the option leading to Topic 2 so that it is no longer available.

Can anyone help me?  If you are still confused by what I mean, here's an example:

Jack can say "Hi", "Bye", or "Give me that money."  The last of these options results in the other person saying, "Why should I?", and Jack can then choose "Because I said so," or "Never mind, I don't want it."  Picking the first option results in Jack being given the money and takes him back to the first conversation menu, but now it only says "Hi" and "Bye", without the Money-demanding option.

Hey all!  Sorry if this question is posted elsewhere--I really did search and search first before posting here, and I did not see it anywhere.  I appreciate any help anyone can offer.

Obviously I am new to AGS.  To clarify the following problem, I have not used any script-coding in this game other than the dialog scripting.  Everything I did was through the graphic interface that comes with AGS.  My problem situation is that I want an object to become visible (and interact-able) in one room after the player says a certain thing in a conversation in a DIFFERENT room.  My method for doing this was (a) not have the "Initially visible" box checked for the object, (b) used "set-globalint 1 2" in the appropriate place in the dialog script, and (c) in the object's room, putting a "Conditional - Variable 1 = 2" thingy under "Player enters room (before fadeout)", and then "Switch object back on" as the child action for the conditional.  I hope all that made sense, it's hard for me to describe it all without visually demonstrating.

The object did start out invisible as planned, but the problem happened after having the other-room conversation and selecting the appropriate option.  At this point the object was supposed to become available in its room, but it did NOT.  I have checked and rechecked the obvious possible problems--set-globalint is definitely under the correct topic option, I definitely referred to Variable 1 as having a value of 2 in both cases, etc. etc.

Based on trial-and-error testing with the object, I think the problem lies in the dialog scripting or the variable itself somehow.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong or offer possibilities?  Or if not, can anyone tell me an alternative way to accomplish what I'm trying to do here?

Thanks in advance to anyone who actually reads this whole thing and comments!