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I was under the impression that all dead ends had been eliminated from this version of King's Quest III. So I took my time with the visits to town during Manannan's absence. I gave him all the food I had when he returned (apart from the porridge, I remember I have to cast a spell on it first), and after that I just ignored him as I thought all he'd do would be to send me to my room. However, apparently you can only fail to feed him four times, as he now kills me. Now that I have no more food to give to him, is it a dead end?

I hope that I am allowed to announce a game that will interest very few, if any, of you. It is aimed at a limited audience because:

• It's a commercial game
• It's for elementary school students
• It's in Greek

It's an educational game, for children aged 6-12. I developed it in association with a team of educators, hoping that it will prove to be a fun learning experience and that it will allow me to teach children what an adventure game is. Featuring an original story that draws children's attention, elegant colorful graphics, puzzles that will put their minds to test and a large sum of questions from their school's curriculum, the game helps the children learn while they're too busy having fun to realize it.

The story begins on a distant planet, where two alien scientists are summoned to a council of wise beings. We learn that they consider their homeland to be too boring and barren, and they wish to begin a search for a colorful planet. The two scientists, the heroes of our story, will lead this expedition aided by an all-purpose robot called Gongbot. Unfortunately for them, their spaceship malfunctions right before they crash-land on Earth, and their robot is shattered to pieces.



Gongbot plays like a classic 3rd person point & click adventure game. You walk around the area, click on hotspots to get a description, interact with your environment and pick up any object you can. You can switch between the male and female character at any point, at the press of a button. The game features professional voice acting recorded at a studio, as well as musical scores specifically hand picked to match the theme and appeal to children of that age.

In order to find all the missing pieces, the heroes will soon realize that they will need to cooperate with the fauna and flora of the woods. They will need to listen to them and help them in any way they can.



In addition to the puzzles that they need to solve, players are often asked to answer multiple choice questions. If the children select the wrong answer, they will hear a hint and they will be presented with a new question until they get it right. First and Second Grade students only have two options to choose from, while older student have four. There is a different set of questions per grade, which are displayed at random. That increases the game's replayability, as it's essentially a different game every time you start over.

The game's website is https://gongbot.gr.

This is my third AGS game, after Other Worlds and Diamonds in the Rough.

[241]

Hello, I know the title is not very clear but I could not think of a way of describing the problem in one phrase.

I have a GUI that requires the player to type a code. Let's say that the player types 241.

What I want to do is to identify the numbers that the player types, and run some mathematical operations with them.

I can tell what the player typed as first, second, third number by using the Chars[] property on the string that is the GUI input. So I know that Chars[0]=1, Chars[1]=4 and Chars[2]=2. But these are defined as char, which I can neither convert to int nor make them strings so that I can use the AsInt property.

How can I identify each of the characters as int?

Any help will be appreciated.

I searched the forum and read some topics regarding commercial games, but I couldn't find anything related to my question, so here it goes:

I've been commissioned to create an educational adventure game for 1st-6th grade students (6-12 years old) in Greece. The buyer will buy the game from a portal they intend to set up, download it and then type the key they purchased to play it. The game includes educational questions, which depend on the grade the child is currently in, so the key they are buying is restricted to a specific grade. If they want to play the game for another grade later on, they will need to purchase a different key.

The above is fairly easy to set up. My question is, how do I prevent the same key from getting used again? My clients are understandably worried that classmates will just buy a single key and all use the same one. Is there a way for an AGS game to check an internet database to see if they key has been used before? How do I do that, and what do I need to tell the web developer?

Any help will be appreciated.

My game has two player characters who randomly follow each other around and can be chosen at any time at a press of a button. My problem is that I can't seem to figure out what to do with their baselines; most of the times the character who is in front is drawn in front, but sometimes that doesn't happen and it looks weird. I tried changing their baselines based on whose 'y' is higher with repeatedly execute, but with no success. Any ideas?

EDIT: I think I figured out the problem... Although all my sprites were drawn the same size, their feet are 26 pixels apart. So in the game, even though the male character may appear to be below the female, it's really vice versa. I don't suppose that there is an easier way than replacing all sprites?

Hello everyone, I haven't posted here in years, it's good to be back. I have a potentially embarrassing question:

I have recently started working on a new game, which, unlike the two previous ones I made, has a single cursor interface. I figured out how to get one cursor to do everything in the main game area by using the following script in on_mouse_click:

Code: ags

else if (button == eMouseLeft) {
    String location = Game.GetLocationName(mouse.x, mouse.y);
    if (location == "") ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeWalkto);
    else ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeInteract);
  }

but I can't get my inventory to work. The inventory is a bar on the top of the screen, always visible. I want the cursor to 'pick up' the inventory item it clicks on, and I want to be able to use one inventory item on another. Instead, clicking on an inventory item does nothing.

Any help will be appreciated.

I read several Windows 7 compatibility issues threads. I am posting this because I didn't find the answer to my problem in any of them, but mostly because I appear to be having a different kind of problem than the ones I read.

I recently formatted my computer and installed Windows 7 Ultimate. When I try to run Other Worlds (a 256 colors game), the colors are all messed up. I tried all kinds of compatibility modes but the problem remains. It used to run fine on Vista. Is there any way around this? I have a Radeon HD 2400 if it helps.

Thanks in advance.

Hello my friends, I hope you're all doing well.

Unfortunately, I have some sad news for you. Recent developments, as well as some personal issues, left me with no choice but to terminate Atropos Studios against my will.

I won't bore you with details, let's just say that although Diamonds in the Rough sold pretty well and made me pretty confident that this company had a future, we were unable to attract the interest of potential sponsors and producers. I've heard a lot of promises during the past couple of years, a lot of guarantees, I even signed agreements and almost began working on my new game a couple of times, but the sad truth is that AS had become a hole I was shoveling money in so I had to draw the line somewhere.

I have some games left so I will sell them on Ebay for just $11 + postage, so if you haven't played Diamonds in the Rough yet check out this page because these are my last ones and after those are over I won't be making any more.

I wish you all a happy new year!

On February 5th, the scriptwriters union of Greece are holding a conference titled "Script and Digital Games". I've been invited to deliver a presentation. The idea is to bring together two parallel (at least in Greece) worlds, those of professional TV & cinema scriptwriters and computer game scriptwriters, exchange ideas, maybe even discuss possibilities of collaboration.

Now, I am no stranger to the art of holding a microphone (so to speak), and I have given speeches in the past, but those were related to boring topics such as neural networks and nanotechnology, nothing as interesting and important as computer games. Furthermore, I'm kind of worried that I will be speaking to people with little to no previous experience in gaming, who perhaps consider them as childish and a waste of time. Apart from presenting my work, I want to deliver a message: that computer games can (and have done so in the past) offer professional, well-written scripts. I'm interested in proving that game script writing has more similarities to movie script writing than people may think and that is what my presentation will be focused on.

Most of the people in this forum have written scripts so I would be grateful if you had any particular pointers for me.

[FEMALE NAME DELETED]

The following was sent to my personal e-mail address. At first I thought it was spam and almost deleted it, but after reading it I realized that this person (woman?) is trying to tell me something. However I have no idea what it is! AGS is mentioned so who knows, perhaps she's a member and will see this. I removed her name from the e-mail.

---
Title: Alex dear (funny } I will try to download demo but it no good too

Message:
I love your games and blog
but i really got ripped off
Buy and Download PC video gn  bought your game from here
trieAGS to download your games from here
Alkis Polyrakis  file
thank you for taking money from me
I read the reveiws of this game
how come you an expert made it so hard to download and install'and cost me money which i will never get back
here is wBuy and Download PC video gam s i bought it from
thank you for nothing
p.S.. ags should rid of you
your are a scam
FEMALE NAME DELETED   your are corrupt
   fix  please download your files yourself and see what  happens
         you dummy
smile FEMALE NAME DELETED
---

Notes:
-My name is not Alex
-I don't have a blog
-I have never taken money from this person, however maybe The Adventure Shop (as the link is included) has
-If you follow the AGS link, it will take you nowhere near my game... but that page has a demo called "rough diamond demo" so I'm guessing this person confused it with mine?

A customer is trying to run Diamonds in the Rough on a Windows XP emulator in Mac osx. He says the tracking is way off and he can't click or even position the cursor. He tried the mouse settings in both winxp and osx. Has anyone tried this with an AGS game?

  May I ask why it was removed?

I ended up in this site by accident while I was searching for screenshots of the 256 colors version of Deja Vu.

It's one of the dozens of sites that offer games for download under the pretense that they're 'abandonware' (let's not go there). I clicked on 'O' and Other Worlds was there. I then clicked on 'download' to see if the site hotlinked to either AGS or my web page, and I was prompted to enter my credit card number to cover for their "increasing service maintaining costs".

I didn't search the web site for long, but I saw 'The New Adventures of Zak McKracken' there and I'm sure it has more AGS games.

The question is: should we do something about it? Or is it better to not fight a war you can't win?

[EDIT: The game is out, my friends. Go to our web site if you wish to order it.]

EDIT: The game is out, my friends. Go to our web site if you wish to order it.

Dear friends,

I'm happy to announce that the making of our game is over. The production of the CDs has started and before long the program will be available for sale from our web page.

Diamonds in the Rough is a 'traditional', 3rd person point & click commercial adventure game.

You play the role of a 20 year old American called Jason Hart. Jason is a high school dropout who works as an office boy. All that is about to change in the beginning of our story, when he is approached by a mysterious man who seems to know more about him than Jason does himself.

The man claims to represent an organization that recruits people who are believed to have "special abilities". Those abilities could be telepathy, telekinesis, or other extraordinary powers. Jason has had such an ability all his life, fearing to admit it to himself, let alone others. He accepts the job offer for this organization, which is called "Diamonds in the Rough".

The story begins as soon as Jason moves to a town in the Midwest, where he will be employed doing this mysterious "work". He will soon start to wonder who he is really working for, and what the purpose of the organization is.



I'd like to thank Chris Jones, all my associates as well as everyone who believed in me, especially those of you who helped me with AGS scripting. Never forget that this is a title made by a gamer for gamers.

I guess this kind of post is frowned upon, but I don't know what else to do. If a moderator knows the answer to my question, please PM me and delete this topic.

Ashen (aka Nik) was a very active member in the AGS forum, and a moderator of the 'Beginners' section. He was also a beta tester of my game, and a very helpful associate thanks to his knowledge in AGS. All that until the day he disappeared! I see in his profile that he hasn't accessed the forum for more than two months, and he won't reply to my e-mails. Does anyone know if he's all right? I want his address so that I can send him a free copy of DITR as it's about to be released, but I have no way of contacting him.

[August 30]

During the last week of August, my hard drive died and I bought a new one. After installing Windows, I had some problems with the installation of my Gigabyte motherboard. Although I had all the original disks that came with it (and worked fine the first time I used them a year ago), the audio refused to work.

After extensive Google search and trials & errors, the problem persisted so I decided to send Gigabyte an e-mail. They have a pretty nifty online form where you are required to provide a detailed information of your hardware. I did, and I wrote a long e-mail explaining the problem. I noticed they even gave you the opportunity to check the status of your e-mail (unread, read or replied), and I thought "Wow, they must be very confident about their response time". That was in August 30.

However, days passed and the status of my e-mail never changed from "unread". I eventually managed to solve the problem myself and forgot all about that e-mail.

Imagine my surprise when I read their reply today:

Thank you for your kindly support and contacting GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY.
Due to the public holidays from 2007/09/22-2007/09/25, your mail will be replied after 2007/09/25. We appreciate your understanding and wish you with happy holidays.

Once the laughter subsided, I decided to write back. Here is my e-mail:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Knowing how much you value constructive feedback, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that you have the customer service level of a local grocery shop during a civil war.

I am a man with a sense of humor, therefore I can appreciate a good joke. How else would I interpret me sending you an e-mail in August 30, and you replying in September 17 that you cannot reply to me because your holidays begin in 5 days?

Please don't waste any more of your valuable time replying to me, I'm sure you are busy packing your suitcases, scheduling manicures and pedicures or whatever you hard working professionals do before going to Fiji. I saved you the trouble by carefully unplugging your precious motherboard from my PC with the assistance of a sledge hammer and a chainsaw. It has now found a new purpose in life as an elegant (if slightly eccentric) decorative item on my dart board. I'm sure you will be glad to hear it is perfectly functional and compatible.

Sincerely yours,

Your faithful customer

I find the repeatedly_execute_always() function extremely useful and I resort to it many times while scripting. Has anyone managed to make a similar function (or module) for on_key_press()? I want to be able to use a "magic" button when GUIs are open or when a conversation is playing but I can't figure out whether that's possible or not. For instance, I have an introduction in my game and I want the player to be able to stop watching it by pressing Escape. Or, keys 1-7 set the music volume and I want the player to be able to reduce the volume during a dialog. But I can do neither because you can't assign keyboard functions while a dialog is playing... or can you?

This is the weirdest problem I've come across. The fact that it only happens on a limited amount of computers with very different setups makes it even weirder.

I have this movie file that is played in the beginning of the game. It runs fine on most computers. Some people could not run it, so I asked them to download the latest DivX Codecs. They did, and they were able to run it fine with their video players... but when they ran the game, it was UPSIDE DOWN!

Does anyone have a clue what is going on? As the video players run it, it must be an AGS thing. And I can't even experiment as I have no problem with it in my PC.

My 'Exit' system works this way:

Say there's an open door in the room. I draw a region around the door to make sure that the Walk cursor will change to an Exit icon, and a hotspot around the same area. I then add a walk-to point to the hotspot to make sure that my character will always walk to the hotspot (and the region) and exit the room when you click on the hotspot.

My problem is that I don't want my character to walk to the hotspot when you click on it with a different cursor (use, talk or inventory). No matter how I try to adjust the code, adding player.StopMoving() or other functions I can think of the player always moves to hotspots that have a walk-to point when you click on them. How can I stop this from happening?

My second question is, is there any way to pause a dialog by pressing a key?

Here's the problem: My game features a "Thoughts" GUI, which is basically a Panel of buttons displayed as post-its. When the player uses the GUI, he can select a "Thought" with the Use icon, which causes a special post-it inventory item to turn the same color and a global variable named "thought" to change value.

As turning the GUI on and off repeatedly can become tedious after a while, I thought of using the mouse wheel to cycle through "thoughts" when the player's active inventory item is the post-it. This was simple to enough to achieve with the following script inside on_mouse_click:

Code: ags

  else if (button==eMouseWheelSouth) {
     if ((player.activeinv==1) && (mouse.Mode==4)) {    
        if (th==1) {
           if (Thou1.Visible==true) {
              thought="yourself";
              SetInvItemPic(1,145);
              }
           }
        else if (th==2) {
           if (Thou2.Visible==true) {
              thought="DITR";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 270);
              }
           }
        else if (th==3) {
           if (Thou3.Visible==true) {
              thought="Mr. Hungerton";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 145);
              }
           }   
           .
           .
           .
           .}

As you can see, GUI buttons Thou1, Thou2 etc. are not always visible, and I need to check whether each one of them is every time. The obvious problem is that if, for instance, Thou1 and Thou4 are visible and Thou2 and Thou3 aren't, there is a delay of two mouse wheel clicks before Thou4 is selected.

I've tried several workarounds, such as checking whether the next button is visible, and then the next, and then the next, until I got something like that:

Code: ags

        else if (th==5) {
           if (Thou6.Visible==true) {
              thought="Sydelle";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 145);
              }
           else if ((Thou6.Visible==false) && (Thou7.Visible==true)) {
              thought="Nadine";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 145);
              }
           else if ((Thou6.Visible==false) && (Thou7.Visible==false) && (Thou8.Visible==true)) { 
              thought="Henry";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 145);
              }
           else if ((Thou6.Visible==false) && (Thou7.Visible==false) && (Thou8.Visible==false) && (Thou10.Visible==true)) {  
              thought="Curtis' favor";
              SetInvItemPic(1, 312);
              }
           else th=0;
           }

but soon enough the different scenarios become too many and the code too messy.

Can anyone think of a more simple solution to avoid dead clicks?