Topics

I'm working on a utility to read in some of the AGS files.  I've started with the Sprite Cache.  I downloaded the source code for the engine and tried to decipher the file format from that.  However, I'm not sure it is correct.  Would anyone be able to confirm that the follow is accurate and if not, what is wrong with it?

Code: AGS

    <Header>
    word        version (6)
    string      SpriteFileSig (" Sprite File ")
    byte        Compressed (1 or 0)
    long        SpriteFileIDCheck
    word        Index of Last Sprite (Number of Sprites -1)
    
    <Sprite Header>
    word        bpss (Bytes per Color)
    word        Sprite Width
    word        Sprite Height
    
    <Compressed>
    long        Length
    byte        Array of bytes of Length in size   
    
    <Uncompressed>
    byte        Array of bytes of bpss * Sprite Width * Sprite Height (Could be word or long depending on Color depth)

Thanks.

Fantasy is the genre that I know best but I recently got the urge to make a detective story.  Whether we're talking Hard-boiled or even slightly Noir, I'm interested in looking at this genre.  I wanted something slightly dark and mysterious may a little paranormal but not too over the top.  But I would like to do it right, if I can.  I'd like some input because I don't know where to start writing the story for one.  Any thoughts?  What makes a good detective story?

Which would you rather have as the investigator?  A P.I? Detective?  Beat Cop? or a Reporter?  If I understand the genre, it is traditionally the 30/40s time period but do you think it could be modern or even slightly futuristic?  Do you feel that it should be done in Grayscale or Sepia? or full color?

I was thinking of making it a serial killer or a whodunit type mystery.  Any thoughts as per inspiration for characters or story?  Movies?  Games?

Thanks.

J

I'm not sure if it is me or if AGS has some odd behavior.  But when my player character has a follower, walking near the player and the player doubles back onto the follower, the player stops animating his walk and begins sliding along to his destination instead of stopping on the spot where the two collided.  Any suggestions on what I can do to fix this?  Thanks.

J

I have a suggestion for AGS's Room Editor.  I was thinking of implementing it as Extender functions but it would be so much better as part of the Room Editor.

Basically, it is a way of tagging a specific point within a room and giving it a name.  Then instead of teleporting a character to a specific Room and coordinates, you can just give the name of the location that you want the character to move to.  Each Room would have a list of x,y coordinates and a name.

So a teleport would go from:

player.ChangeRoom(11, 400, 337);

to:

player.ChangeRoom(11, "EntryWay");


This gives two benefits:  Your code is more readable than just numbers and if you have to change the location, you just have to edit the one Location Point with the Room Editor and all references in your game are updated.  No fuss or mess.

I hope you like the idea.  Thanks.

James

I know that the Character file that is exported from AGS 3.1+ is an XML format.  The only part I'm not sure of is how the sprite image data is stored.  What format is the binary data that is between the SpriteData elements?  Is that UUEncoding of some type?  If so, what algorithm and what is the format of the original source binary data?  PNG? RAW Binary?  or something else?  Thanks.

James

I know that this idea will only be useful to some and not all view creation will benefit.  However, please hear me out.  The game that I'm making uses 3D pre-rendered sprites.  Each character sprite has 15 frames for each of the 8 loops as well as 15 frames per loop for speech.  I have quite a few characters and I'm getting tired of generating the views for each character.

Since each character has the exact same number of frames in the exact same order, it would stand to reason I should be able to automate view creation easier than the Assign View loop by loop.  The idea is that you select a range of frames that represents the entire view, right click and start the wizard (just like we do with Assign View..).  The first page of the wizard takes the number of frames per loop (it should be able to tell from the number of frames per loop and the number of frames selected whether you have enough for 4 or 8 loops) as well as the view number that you want to assign the loops to and whether you want to Add or Overwrite the current frames.  Then the next screen should show the first frame from each of the loops and a dropdown box to name the direction of each loop.

I think this form of view creation would be faster and more productive, if your character has a constant order and frames as mine do.  Most of my characters are asymmetrical so I don't use flipped sprites.  However, I'm sure with some cleverness, that too could be handled with an option on the first page to handle flipped sprites and another on the second page to say which loop gets flipped.  Thanks.

James

I just finished transferring a TTF font to a SCI font for my game.  I had to hand tweak some areas.  I wanted to know if you think it is readable and comfortable to look at.  Please forgive any spelling errors.  Nothing has been proof read yet.   And I'd like to change the overhead text to speech bubbles as soon as I know enough about AGS to do it.



Please let me know what you think.  Thanks

Hi,

I can't be the first person to ask this question but I can't seem to find the answer in any of my searches.  I want to have an inventory bar at the bottom of my screen which permanently takes up that area and the room would scroll around above that rather than the whole height of the screen.  I was able to create a GUI that sits at the bottom of the screen but I can't seem to force the room to scroll within the smaller area.  Is there any way to control the height of the viewport without affect the GUI? 

Here is my interface so far:



Currently the GUI cuts off the bottom of the room by the height of the inventory screen.  If there is no way to control the viewport height, then I'll add a black area on the background to give it some scrolling room.

Thanks.

[INTRODUCTION]

INTRODUCTION
"The Rogue Prince" is set in a medieval fantasy environment.  The player character is a young man named Pol who is considered riffraff and generally shunned by many in the town of Little Hallow.  He is an orphan who lives in an abandoned Water Mill on the outskirts of town.

His only two friends are his constant feline companion, Namiir and his best friend Lyrren.  Lyrren is the daughter of Lord and Lady Glanowyn and because she is loved by the entire town, Pol is tolerated.  How the two met is an adventure in itself.  However, they have been best friends since the time they were kids when Lyrren would sneak loaves of Cook's sweet bread to Pol and Namiir so that they wouldn't starve during the cold winters.

Much has changed since then.  Both have grown up.  Pol works at odd jobs for different ones in the town in exchange for food and supplies.  Meanwhile, Lyrren continues her studies of court life to become the next Lady Glanowyn.  It is in this setting that the adventure begins.


STORY OVERVIEW
The premise of the story is a common one: the kidnapping of Lyrren.  However, it becomes apparent quickly that this story isn't what you think at each plot twist.  Lord Glanowyn does not ask Pol (a lowly street rat) to find his daughter.  He has many soldiers and advisors that he can ask to do that for him.  In fact, at one point, Pol, himself, gets accused of aiding in the kidnapping.

So Pol is thrust into a twisted plot that forces him to leave behind his only home, travel to new lands, to deal with villains and to confront powers that he never imagined and all the while coming to grips with doubts about himself and his station in life.  All this for the love of his best friend.


PROJECT HISTORY
I'm aiming for a casual commercial game.  This game started as an RPG Maker XP game and then migrated to Sphere.  Both of these engines have had their issues and I was forced to abandon them in favour of a more suitable solution.  I'm hoping that AGS is the answer.  Considering what I have done in only two days, I have high hopes.


PROGRESS (Apr 19/09)
Story           |##########|
Dialogue      |##########|
Proof Read   |##########|
Graphics      |##########|
Puzzles        |##########|
Scripting      |##########|
Music/sound |##########|


DEVELOPER LOG
For those that are interested I'm just going to list my some updates of my progress:

May
Made some alteration to SSH's Hypertext Module to allow for Bubbles above and below the character to prevent obscuring other characters in the conversation.  I'm going to work on a dialog system next.

April
It has been just over a month since I made my first post here.  Since then I have replaced all of the default graphics and behavior of the normal AGS template.  Converted the interface to a two button style interaction as discussed later in this thread.  Created an ingame menu, a main menu, a simple intro sequence and created new rooms.  Created a Book Shelf GUI.  Remade all of my character graphics to reduce the number of sprites (from 15 frames to 7 + 1 standing frame per loop) and created a talking animation for each character.  Start some inventory interactions to test some of the interface behavior.  Got some help from AGS community to pick a decent font for the game.  Converted several fonts to SCI before settling on the one I'm using.  Started using SSH's HyperText Module for Speech Bubbles.  Made some minor modifications to the module to suit my game.  I may make some more.  Did some organization documentation to help me keep coordinates saved as I play test various rooms.

Implemented a large cutscene (~5 min) that is the turning point in the beginning of the game and YouTubed it.  I'm going to replace it now that I have speech bubbles working.  The text may appear much clearer once compressed.

Finished implementing the last of the regular dialog boxes.

March
This was the month that I started using AGS.  I started on the 18th and spent the rest of this month watching the YouTube videos and experimenting with coding within AGS.  I made a small cutscene and then moved on to tackle the inventory GUI.


SCREEN SHOTS
This is a work in progress and is constantly changing. These are screen shots of what I have done so far with AGS.  Please forgive any spelling errors.  Nothing has been proof read yet.