Topics

(This is a rollcall in regards to a workgroup within the Swedish organisation Sverok (http://www.sverok.se/english/) to swedish-speaking members of the AGS community. These forums was used because I could quickly reach a large selection of people that 1) have experience of game development and 2) have experience of a genre of games relient on narration and theme rather than arcade gameplay. Feel free to ask me questions, in the thread or through PM, but actual participation requires you have a thorough knowledge of the Swedish language, unfortunately.)

Kulturrådet är en arbetsgrupp i Sverok som jag agerar sammankallande för. Gruppen skapades för ett par år sedan och syftet var att utreda hur Sverok kan arbeta för att främja spelkultur. (Vi snackar alltså spel som kulturyttring, inte som det sociala klimatet i relation till spelande.) Vi har i huvudsak två uppgifter: som tankesmedja utarbetar vi egna förslag; som utskott mottar och bearbetar vi specifika frågeställningar. Arbetet rör de flesta former av spel, digitala likväl som analoga - och vi vill rekrytera nya rådsmedlemmar.

Vill du veta mer eller anmäla ditt intresse? Mejla kulturradet snabel-a sverok punkt se. Det går också bra att ställa frågor här i tråden

[1) Get the latest version of Wine]

Couldn't find a recent run-down on the process, so I documented my own (streamlined) process (excluding all dead-ends and rage-quits). If this thread is inappropriate in this forum, please feel free to delete or move it.

This is a guide for installing and running the AGS editor on Ubuntu 64-bit. At the moment of writing this, I'm running Kubuntu 13.10 (codename Saucy), which is a KDE "flavour" of Ubuntu. Here's what I did and (hopefully everything) you need to do:

1) Get the latest version of Wine
Head to https://www.winehq.org/download/ubuntu and add the Wine PPA to your package sources. Then run:

Code: ags

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine

2) Create a separate 32-bit wine prefix

Code: ags

WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 winecfg

Just press ”Ok” if you don't know a particular change to the default Wine setup you wish to apply to this prefix.

3) Install .NET 2.0 on this prefix.

Code: ags

env WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 winetricks dotnet20

4) Download the latest AGS install executable
Head to http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/ags/ and download the executable. Then run (in the folder you downloaded to):

Code: ags

env WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 wine AGS-3.3.0.exe

Exchange ”AGS-3.3.0.exe” for whatever file you've downloaded.

5) Start the editor

Code: ags

env WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 wine ~/.wine32/drive_c/"Program Files"/"Adventure Game Studio 3.3.0"/AGSEditor.exe

This snippet assumed you made no changes to the suggested installpath and is ideally saved as a shortcut on your system.

The idea of making a fighting game intrigues me, but I saw it fitting to start a new thread for it. This will not discuss what functions to (ab)use, how to make character X do Y when button Z is pressed or whatnot, but rather discuss the underlining framework for a fighting game.

The first issue to address, long before background graphics and sprite animation, is how to map hits. My first thought is to have relative coordinates for attacks and fully transparent placeholder areas:

Let's say a character is placed on (X,Y) at a given time. We now have a series of possible attacks - high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick etc. Each of these needs to have a fixed relation to (X,Y) when the character faces a specific way.

Let's say the character faces right.

Low kick (X + 50,Y) - the low kick will hit if the opponent is 50 pixels to the right, and not in the air since Y is at ground level.

So what is the opponent? A rectangle the height of the character, or some sort of polygon better suited to map out a body? Either way, whether each attack will hit is whether or not the coordinates of the attacks is within the placeholder area. Using another character as a placeholder and hiding it with the walk-behind masks is a nice way to go about - it can even be dynamic by switching sprites, so the area changes when jumping, crouching, doing flying kicks etc. Nice to pull off an uppercut into the groin of a high kickin' opponent!

Then we make the game balance asymmetric by character specific variables - each fighter has a different delay from button press to finished blow, how much impact each attack has, the size of the placeholder area etc. From a swift and vicious, slim martial artist to a huge brute, with larger delays in the attacks, but with massive damage once a punch lands in someone's face.

Do any of you have first hand experience of coding a brawler, and what kind of neat feats and tricks of the trade have you gotten hold of?

EDIT: Tidied up the language a bit.

Yup, I'm at it again. Not too many episodes yet, but it's been around for oh such a short while. Updates every week. Atleast for now. Perhaps twice a week later on. Pity for you who desperatly wanted chapter 2 of Cogs And Robbers but what can I say..

http://www.riotamot.com/vampire

Well, drawing is a two edged sword. All I can teach is how to improve your technical knowledge, sadly that removes the core of your expression, namely the naïve values of your work. You stop being unique as soon you pick up a pencil in the pursuit of mimicing some other peoples work. Nothing wrong about that, people tend to mimic what they like, and few people study so hard they remove the sense of individuality within their work. But every exercise takes away a bit of you. Bear in mind that before you proceed. There are a hundred people that can draw like Rembrandt, but only one that can draw like you.

Step 0: There are two parts of drawing. One is technical advancement in your hand; the way you can move your tool in the way you want it to. The second is experience; knowing HOW to achieve the effect you want. We'll focus this pre-step on the first of the two, namely TEChniCAL ADvANCEMENT(!!111). I had the great honour to study under Baron Yoshimoto, and his first lesson was brutal but effective. None of us followed it, but it is suitable if you are so called "unable to draw". The exercise is making lines on a piece of paper. Only lines. Long lines, short lines, wavy lines, straight lines.. Do this for a month, only to train up the eye to hand coordination in your hand of choice. Yes, I know, none of you will do this, but that is what differ inbetween people you find talented or not: eye-to-hand-coordination; the way of making lines where you want them to be. This is hard work, and you don't get it for free.


Step 1: The usage of guides. None of you demands that you make a good drawing from scratch. Step 0 helps you make clear sketches, nothing else. Use stickmen, because everyone can draw stickmen. Yes, even you. And you. But to draw GOOD stickmen is another situation all together. Firstly, with the stickmen, work with posture. Notice how this stickmens joints are juxtaposed? That is the no. 1 posture in nude drawings, because it gives dynamics AND relaxation to the body. Not saying that you MUST use this posture, it is only there to portray how the joints can be manipulated into delivering a mood. When your stickmen works, only then put some flesh onto it. I will develop this further on later.

Step 2 is proportion - AND how to mess with it. Whether you strife for realism, surrealism or plain cartoons, the proportions is your friend. Some people will disagree and spoke that the expression is above proportions, but I say, a solid expression made with correct proportions is to strife for. So what is proportion. It is how large parts of the body are compared to each other. THIS IS EASILY TRAINED USING STICKMEN.. again. Start with the head, for realism, make a body about 7 heads. 8 is the ideal, but none of us are 8 heads tall. Really, it all smells race biology. The Indy sprite in FoA is 5 heads. Still realistic. My other example is 4 heads. Big heads, smaller bodies (even though that looks like a baby, but with adult proportions of the torso and legs). The reason you often enlarge the head is that the face is the key element of characters and expression, you deliver through facial expression and exaggeration. Well the face and hands actually, but the face is what brings us to...

Step 3: Face proportions. This is how parts relate to eachother on the face. The eyes are middle, and one eyes width apart. Mouth ends by pupils. Nose placed about middle inbetween chin and eyes etc etc. But lets mess with that. Because frankly, that face is boooring.

Step 4a: Here we use the face proportions correctly within weird shapes. And this is not only an experiment, always work with shapes before adding detail (Step 4b). Remember our stickman? Give your stickman different shaped heads and different shaped bodies. We then destroy the proportions in our lower examples where the forehead is removed, but the ears still follow the eyes. Or the opposite, a abnormly large forehead.Ã,  To maintain a sense of proportion within the warped piece, always start from correct proportion and stretch some out while maintaining others. There are no rules about this, only the experiment and decision whether the result is appealing or not. I will develop this further aswell later.

Step 4b works with 3dimensional shapes to form a fablelike creature. The core is here that several shapes are formed together to produce a whole. Regarding your pieces as a 3dimensional shape helps you portraying your character in all angles, and all actions. And remember SIMPLE IS BEST. Always..

This is Part One. If you want to reply, do this ONLY to debate elements of the lessons. Please don't fill this with "Wow, thanks!" or "You suxx0rs.." please.

Remember the ninja rope in Worms? Well I suddenly got an idea to make a simple gung-ho action game of swinging, dodging and destructing. My knowledges in C or C++ is simply inexistant and I seek YOU with the lust to help me write the engine. I would take care of all graphics and other conceptual design issues (but if you're eager to participate in those fields, I won't shunt you away). The game is to be simple and focused on good arcade gameplay.

-Linus

Many of you seem to rage against the so called "useless posts", a specific set of text without meaning, purpose or value. The current warlord of this be the often insulted Flukeblake, but I ask simply;

Why is these posts regarded pointless?

In my oppinion, knowing that a specific person suddenly grew a vast amount of inches (and don't get me wrong here) is just as valuable information as SONY fudging up your computer.

Is it the personal issue, that height is only something regarded to the thread starter? People post threads about how they plan to buy specific consoles or earlobe issues, or pictures of newborn sons. No flaming there..

Is it that height is completely invaluable topic discussions, or growth? Pfft!

Browsing through the general forum, I find that most threads hands out to actual questions about a specific subject. Others are welcoming to discussions of a specific subject, which differs from questions since the starter adds his 2 cents first and ask for others. A kind of query about personal preferences in order to know the forumites further. Then we have the informational subjects; newsworthy stuff. "I have to tell the others about this shit going down". Here's where my biggest concern is. Well not concern but question then. What decides whether it is newsworthy or not? General interests? We're gamers so news about games attract us? Social concerns? We are social creatures and the very forum is social, thus social matters qualify?

In any sense, Flukeblakes height may have interested few, but it is as valid as pictures of babies any day in terms of social engangement and reference. But let us NOT fall in the pit of debating whether a person should be flamed or not, THIS THREAD IS NOT MEANT TO DISCUSS A SPECIFIC FORUMITE! I MEAN IT, I'LL BLOODY PM-FLAME YOU IF YOU DO! This thread is a 'query' according to aformentioned genres, and what I REALLY ASK about, after all this is:

How do you decide whether you should click that 'new topic'-button or not. Have you not had a moment of doubt? Have you pondered whether this is a suitable subject of discussion or not? If so, on what basis do you decide its suitability?

Yeah, I havn't been pixelpushing in ages, and frankly, I lost most of TEH SKILLZ0r so basically, would those inclined please slaughter this piece thoroughly. It was inspired by the nice homoerotic ComfortQuest thread, and contitutes of about 5 colors. But I just have problems pixeling. Huge problems. And let us not discuss animation.. egh..

Also, don't bother about the sword, because I didn'tÃ, 

Well, ILB is as back and online as it'll be for now. Sadly, my old computer started emitting smoke. Yep, smoke.. hence I am in desperate need for a zip of WKKR, the OpensourceVerbCoin (just the proper version, I can't bother with history) and the WTII demo (as in the non parser version).

Anyone that has these and don't bother upload them, or are friendly enough to point out mirrors of uploads allready. I recall someone mirroring the verbcoin but I can't remember who and can't find it within a search.

http://www.riotamot.com/ilb.htm - it is not much but it is something.

Don't know if this has been discussed, but is it possible to execute commands BEFORE the screen is updated? What I do know is setting the x and y coordinates to match the players character, in order to make a free overlay (like for instance an overcoat).

The problem lies where the character updates it's position one cycle before the rep_exec positions the overlay accordingly. This is ofcourse not a problem when the characters stands still.

I have tried to exchange the coordinating placement to making two MoveCharacter-commands instead, and also set so characters can be walked through. Albeit, they still don't move exactly in similar ways (and they have the same speed and animation speed). Could be something about the character turning setting, I have to check this out..

[DISCLAIMER]
Hello there. This is a shameless plug. Yes. Indeedy. In a way, it might fit into the critic's lounge, but in the same sense, it does not because frankly, it has nothing to do with AGS. Ok, now that we're through with that, let's get to it.
[/DISCLAIMER]

This might interest those with an interest in comic, but perhaps more those inclined to make their own.

I am currently working (or rather studying, but in a practical sense.. eh, whatever) with this webcomic-project entitled Cogs and Robbers. I think the site itself explain what the deal is, and now since the first major update is on the loose, I thought I'd share it with you (read: advertise).

The reason I'm dropping this onto you is because I know (knew?) most of you, and you're among the more friendlier, or rather resonable, communities out there. And after that smooth appraisal, here comes the request for your participation: If you like what you see, you're very much welcome to spread the word to friends and family with a similar interest. Ofcourse, I'll try this scheme at other places too, aswell as nagging friends back here, but any suggestions of places to sell your soul are welcome aswell.

I also seek to establish a pack of regular readers to partake in discussions with, even though in what sense is currently in the planning stages. Either way, if you send any feedback or similar (by mail or through this thread), let me know if you give permission for me to include the discussions in the process documentation (see the site for explanation)

Thank you for your attention.
Feels good to be a whore.
- Linus aka 2ma2

I have recently found myself favouring small adventure games. Although the amateur serious projects are admirable, there's simply more fun with smaller adventures.

It could be that I have less of spare time, and thus less time to put on games. This is true to an extent. A full length game is not you sit through playing, whilst a smaller game is a fun pass time, giving you the satisfaction of playing it through and you can write it off your list directly. But it's not that I seek mindless pass time, no, I still enjoy clever storylines and well crafted characters.

Is it just me being a weakling adventurer? Or is it me nurturing my adventuring needs in smaller doses, because I really don't play anything anymore. I tend to see this as the natural path of the amateur development; smaller projects for lesser playing time, and I don't find this to be something bad, no, not at all. It's not that I enjoy really small games (and I do put PD amongst them), it is just that I lack the ambition to play through 10 hours of gameplay.

Have you had similar experiences, or do you think I'm speaking complete horsesh*t? What is the natural course of amateur adventure development? Simulating the market, or being happy being skilled amateur?

Yesh, I've encountered something mighty peculiar. It aint even the usual everlasting wait-loop cause I can't even break my way out of the game using good ol' lsl tricks (alt-x)

When running this, my whole comp freezes. Not even the gd forsaken ctrl-alt-del makes a difference. What the hell is wrong with this script?!

if (Mode()==4) { //this is just a function returning a value
MoveCharacterBlocking(EGO,192,145,0);SetObjectBaseline(3,character[EGO].y-1);
MoveCharacterDirect(EGO,192,136); Wait(10);
Anim(EGO,2,7,7,1,0);
//all above I know is working as it should. Anim() is my own function to ease the scripting load

while (GetObjectX(3) > 82) {
 if (character[0].frame == 2 || character[0].frame == 5) {SetObjectPosition(3,GetObjectX(3)-2,GetObjectY(3));character[0].x-=2;}
 }
//This should be the main problem. It freezes directly, the animation doesn't even start. I've tested removing this and

 character[0].animating=0;
//could this cause it? So it's stuck in the while loop? It should not, it won't execute until the while-loop is finished! Also, if so, I should be able to break myself out, not hitting the reset button on my comp.

MoveCharacterBlocking(EGO,character[0].x,150,1);Talk(EGO,"Yada yada blah blah");old=2;sds=0;MergeObject(2);MergeObject(3);
}
//old and sds are local variables, ignore them. Talk is another function to ease the script load

HEEEEEEELP!  ???

Gee, another one. How is this then. We'll for some reason, Igor called me a scripting god which ofcourse is completely untrue. To earn this trust I made a joke abut writing a platform engine in AGS.

And now I have..

So get your copy today! The zip contains the ags files containing all info about how it's been done, but it also includes some special scenes which Fruittree must have loads of credit for. So basically:

1: A compiled game, short as hell and
2: the source to the platform routines

The game doesn't end when killing the ninja, you have loads of sparetime to explore the platform functions. If you want to kick his ass again, press F9. For the legal bull, read the readme, I'm currently to tired to rewrite it nor think straight enough to put it to print in a sensible way. SO READ THE README.. unfortunate, I wrote that one aswell while beeing quite tired, but it's more comprehensible than this crap I'm writing now.

I've also included a cheap eye candy feature where you can take screen shots of the "tense" gameplay.

You can also choose in which file you'll store that particular screen by pressing 0-9, ala emulators

So with that, let's have a screenshot jam. The most unique thing you can accomplish with P:TNI and an underlying text of your choice wins.. uh.. he/she winds.. I'll get back to that m'kay?

There's yet some minor bugs which I can't bother find out why they are and they're to complicated to fix. You can suddenly fall out from the screen near the edge of that thingamob in the middle, due to the level design, but I couldn't be arsed to redraw it and it only happens if you try to slip underneath it while jumping in 1/10 tries. Also, there's some problems with the jump contra throwing stars functionality, not the delay tho', that's meant to be, but sometimes he throws it twice which should be virtually impossible..

bleh..

Ok, I'll go to bed now, have fun and see if you can find all three ways of killing of that ninja bastard

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Fruittree, you'll see why and
Trapezoid, cause you provided a useful midi package, just as I went out to look for some tune to use. Cheers dude!

Click here to download

EDIT:
I've updated ILB now with this featured. The latest upload has bug fixes and adjustments as:

- Game crashing when repetadly chopping the head off
- Dying when jumping up in the center before the ninja has thrown a star
- Dying in the far right when the ninja has thrown a star
- The distance measuring when chopping the ninja has been lowered
- Stars no longer continue to fly by when you take a snapshot
- Appearing to be ducking after jumping and throwing a star is fixed

What still is quirky:

- Game crashes if you hold the s button a while after you've ran out of stars. I remembered this after the download ofcourse.
- All animations are still carried out while taking a snapshot
- The infamous "flying spånTM bug", cause I won't redraw the scene just because of that