Topics

["I am the frog catcher. I catch the frogs."]

Hey there.

I was hoping that any multi-lingual AGSers could give me a hand with an inscription for a greeting card.

I am looking to have the phrase "I am the frog catcher. I catch the frogs." repeated in as many languages as possible down the card, the joke being that this is the most impractical travel guide ever.
Sadly, my knowledge of languages other than English is severely lacking.

If you are able to show me how to write the above phrase in your native language (or any other), I would be very appreciative of your help.

Regards, Scarab.

[The Gold of the Red Dragon]

Scarab Games Presents...

The Gold of the Red Dragon

A Mongoose Fitch Adventure

Meet Mongoose Fitch.
Loveable peasant and nephew to a wizard.

There is nothing Mongoose loves more than the princess of the realm, so when it is announced that the king is looking for a husband for her, our hero must set off on an adventure to make himself a wealthy and suitable candidate.

This is a short game which started out as an hourgame in 2010 and has been an on-and-off pet project since then.

Controls:
    Left click - Interact
    Right click - Look, Deselect inventory, and accelerate text speed.
    Esc - Skip intro sequence.

I hope you enjoy my first completed game.

Download Here

With thanks to:
    Gabriel_Down for the original soundtrack.
    ShiverMeSideways for help with the Scarab Games theme.
    Babar for testing and bug hunting.
    Ben304 and Grundislav for convincing me to finally release it.

Hey all, I haven't posted anything in C&C for a while, but I really can't get my head around this problem.

I'm trying to draw a single frame from a cut-scene where the character first comes across a giant pile of treasure in a dragon's cave. I'm going for a low colour, stylised palette, and can't seem to get the texture/ composition right.

This is basically my thumbnail sketch of the composition I'm trying to achieve, with the silhouette in the foreground, and the ground around the pile fading into blackness:


This is the scale I'm trying to accomplish it at, and I'd have put more detail in it before posting here, but at this size I'm not even sure if the composition reads well, let alone the texture.


I really have no idea how to pull this off, and its rather specific to find any kind of tutorial out there.

Any help you can offer is appreciated,
Regards,
Scarab.

Hey guys, It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but now I'm back! with a vengeance new character for critique.

He's for the banner in the website I am possibly thinking about maybe tossing up whether to make or not.
Well here he is:
2x

Basically I was going for the a somewhat cartoon-y steampunk look, and I think he looks noticeably like a pilot, although I was hoping for any suggestions on how to shift him more towards the steampunk look.

Any help's appreciated.
Regards
Scarab.

[What's an Hourgame competition?]

Hourgame Saturday
What's an Hourgame competition?
The purpose of Hourgame Saturday is to encourage amateur game-making, or to put it bluntly, to make you plant your ass in your chair and finally make something.
In this activity your task is to make an AGS game within a strict and very short deadline (i.e. one hour).

When will it take place?
This Hourgame session will take place on Saturday 29th May 2010. Starting at 19:00 BST (14:00 New York, 20:00 Budapest) participants will have an hour to make their games + 15 minutes to beta test / upload (i.e. the deadline is 20:15 BST).

How do I participate?
A theme is set by the previous week's winner and by the contest's host in event of his/her absence. It will be announced on IRC (3 simple steps to IRC) and here.

Why should I participate?
Because it's FUN!
The more the merrier, and it's great pactice for the ol' game making skills.
And I will personally supply the victor with:

Additional info:
- While it is not forbidden for the theme-setters to participate in the activity, their games cannot be voted for (to prevent accusations of cheating and to discourage regular participation).
- Instead, theme-setters are encouraged to draw trophies for the contest's winners.
- Making your game from scratch is strongly encouraged, though it is not forbidden to use music or artwork from public sources if you are allowed to (e.g. using public domain music tracks in your game is OK, but not really necessary). It is also possible to use a pre-existing AGS template for your game (e.g. the Verb-Coin GUI template).
- You cannot use stuff you've made earlier, because this competition is about making something new.

Camwhoring:
If you have Camtasia or Camtasia-esque software, it would be great to see your "Making of"! Or blog about it, or just open Notepad, do something! No twittering.

Uploading:
Suggested hosts to upload your entry to are:
Recommended:
TerranRich's ShutUpload

Not recommended:
http://www.mediafire.com/
http://www.sendspace.com/
http://www.rapidshare.com/

Or your own place.

Voting:
Just tell us your favourite game. You don't have to enter to vote!
(If you want to tell us what you liked and disliked about all the entries, that would be super nice of you!)
The voting will end when all the entrants have voted, or on Wednesday, 2nd June, whichever comes sooner.

Please post below if you're interested in participating, if the change in time will/won't work for you, or if you have any other questions.


Hope to see you there!

Hello all,
Just hoping to get some criticism with my walkcycle for a character in a game I'm currently working on, as I'm trying out a new art style.
6 Colours, 160x120 resolution, no holding back. 
I'm relatively happy with it, but an extra opinion or two can never hurt.



Any help is appreciated
Peace,
Scarab.

Screenshot for reference:

Hello.

Currently I am working on a game that is at 160x120 resolution, and as such I had to magnify the graphics when I imported it to AGS.

This works fine, although the mouse movement follows a 320x240 grid, allowing it to move 'half a pixel' which sort of breaks the effect. My original workaround was:

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute(){
mouse.setpostition((mouse.x/2)*2, (mouse.y/2)*2);
}

However, this broke the fluidity of the mouse motion (The mouse moved double speed up/left, but bounced around going down/right).
I therefore made a dummy character follow around the invisible mouse and only move along the 160x120 grid, coupled with an unclickable button on the GUI which worked to the same effect.

The problem is that whenever I run a Display() command, the character/button freezes, and the mouse doesn't, so the player can light up all the GUI buttons with the  MouseOverGraphic feature, when the mouse is not visibly over the button, again breaking the illusion.

I tried putting it in the Repeatedly_Execute_Always() function, but this didn't seem to have any effect. I then checked the manual again, and was unable to find a solution there.

So I was wondering, Is there a way to allow the dummy character and the button to follow the mouse during the Display() command? and if not, are there any other workarounds you can suggest?

Peace
Scarab

Hello all,

I have recently been re-visiting a sprite I made for a sprite jam a while back, and have now added a front view and a left-facing 3/4 view to match the original sprite, both of which I am quite happy with.

The side view, however, refuses to co-operate, and comes across as very blocky, looking nothing like the originals :-



I have also been experimenting with different palettes (the current 8 colour palette is what you see here plus a mauve-y sort of colour, which can be seen in the other entries in the link), mostly for the skin, and haven't been able to find anything I'm particularly happy with, so some suggestions on that too would be appreciated.

I am, of course open to crit on the other three sprites as well, although the side view is the one I am least happy with.

Peace
Scarab

Hey all, I've been working on a platformer recently and I'm not sure about the running walkcycle of the player character.

Any suggestions/paintovers welcome 


Run cycle at full speed


Half speed



Stills

Peace
Scarab

I was flicking through the channels on TV this evening and I stumbled upon this very interesting show. It's called White Collar and it is effectively about a conman who was caught by the FBI but then cracks a deal with them to work for the FBI if he is released from prison. I don't know why but while I was watching it, I had a rather strong sense that I'd seen this somewhere before, which I couldn't quite put my finger on...
Oh, and he wears a grey suit and a trilby...

Any of this seem somewhat familiar to anyone else?

Just thought I might pick some brains before I dive back in and try to take a second try at this...

I was wondering if there was a way to create a function which built upon other functions that already occur within the script, specifically, replacing Say() with SayAt().
Firstly, I'm assuming that dialog functions run through Say() (not some other function which do not appear in the editor), and there's currently no way to change this. (If I am wrong, stop me now)

I was thinking something along the lines of

Code: ags

bool CharacterTalking
string FromSay
if (CharacterTalking==true){
//somehow access the string...
string FromSay="blah";//the contents of the Say() string
}

and then access this file for the contents which can then be placed into

Code: ags

character.SayAt(0,280,300,"%s",FromSay);

I understand that my way is unlikely to work with my rudimentry understanding of coding, but I was just wondering if there was some way to run dialog scripts indirectly through the SayAt command (even through the File function perhaps? Not sure how to use them yet)

Peace
Scarab

[no backgrounds and walkable areas]

My first game (not the first one I started, but the first one I will finish)

Plot Synopsis:
Davy has a test tomorow, and he has not studied. At all.
The only solution he can think of is to steal a copy of the test paper from his teacher's house, and study it all throughout the night.
But how will he get the teacher away from his house...?

The goal of this game is mainly to create the tile engine which I have been trying to implement, but I have tried to make the storyline and gameplay as good as possible.

There will be no mouse use in this game, just arrow keys and 'z' to interact with what is in front of you, and 'x' to cancel the current action/ close menu screens etc.

A lot of the tiles are ripped from various rpg's on Spriter's Resource (mostly the Pokémon games, beacuse they are abundant and so the graphics 'flow' from tile to tile), this is because drawing my own would severely increase production time, and this game is more about the code anyway.

Screenshots:
These may not be the final product, but they're quite close.
There are no backgrounds and walkable areas in this game, and these backgrounds are drawn entirely using the DawingSurface functions.

This is the right hand side of the town square, with Davy standing outside of YahtzeeBrand Store

Davy out at the farm

Production:
Story                                100%
Puzzles                            100%
Dialog                              100%
Character art           65%  97%
Room art                              2%
Sound/Music                        0%
Scripting:
    Tile Engine Mechanics    70%
    Interactions                   10%

Your comments/opinions are appreciated
Peace 8)
Scarab

Hello.
In the game I'm making atm, I'm trying to completely eliminate use of the mouse, and this is going quite well with the character movement, but I'm having trouble with the GUIs.

The plan is: to  create a menu which opens with the enter key, pausing the game, and has the options of Save, Load, Inventory, etc. of which each can be highlighted, one at a time, using the up/down arrow keys, activated with the "z" key.

Currently I have a menu with 8 options which opens on 'Enter', and an int that is flows one through eight as the up/down keys are pressed. When 'Z' is pressed, the gui corresponding to the int is opened.
The 8 options are simply painted on to the GUI graphic currently.

The main things I'm struggling with at the moment are:
    1. Getting the game to pause when the GUIs are up (whenever I run PauseGame(), the arrow keys don't work)
    2. Finding some way to indicate which option is highlighted at the moment, such as a little arrow next to the option.

Any help/suggestions are appreciated
Peace 8)
Scarab

Hokay,
I have learned how to use the DrawingSurface functions to draw out all my tiles (the code being messy, but it works.(I have to SetTile each tile individually)), however, I dont know how to make a GetTile function that will work out what tile the player character is on.

My plan for the movement is essentially to check wether or not the tiles above, below, left and right of the character are walkable every time the player moves into the centre of the tile, and use character[].changeroom to occupy the tiles if they are not walkable.

I will probably work out how to walk one tile at a time on my own eventually, but it would be really good if someone could point me in the right direction. (I remember seeing it in a thread a while ago, but I have been unable to track it down thus far.)

I was looking at the code Here, but I haven't been able to make it work..

I'm eager to do all the hard yards myself here, but I've hit a roadblock, and just if anyone with a bit more coding experience than me (that is to say, coding experience>0) could give me a leg up here that would be great.
As always, any help is appreciated.
Peace 8)
Scar

OK, I tried searching for this, but to no avail, so if there is already a thread on this, please point me in the right direction.

My intention is to have an Inventory GUI which has Look, Use, and Interact as its buttons, but I can't get the Interact function to work, and just using   function iBook_Interact()  doesn't work because it just ends up being 'Use' and picks up the item.
The code I used to make my button work was

Code: ags

function btnInvInteract_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
Mouse.Mode = eModeInteract;
}

The code I had which before I founf out in the manual that it doesn't work was

Code: ags

function iBook_Interact()
{
  
Display ("Feeling destructive, you tear a page out of the book");
player.AddInventory(iPage);
}

After searching the manual I was told that I had to use RunInteraction, and was given this code

Code: ags

InventoryItem.RunInteraction(CursorMode)

//And this example

if (button == eMouseLeftInv)
  inventory[game.inv_activated].RunInteraction(mouse.Mode);

which I can't figure out how to implement

please help
Peace 8)
Scarab

I got into AGS a few months ago, and started my first game, but I hit a fairly large roadblock with the artwork, especially the rooms, causing production to slow severely. The sprites, I feel will be easier for me to get right, so I can get more practice that way.

I wanted to have Lucasarts-style portraits, but if they just look crap, then I might abandon that idea, so if you could tell me how to improve what I've got so far, or just inform me that I need to cut my losses, that would be ok too  

The main character, Malcolm, was the first one I ever made, so I ended up using Trilby as a template, and I just modified Malcolm to make the Captain, so they have the same look to them. The others had different posture and height, so I did them from scratch. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.


This is Declan, the loveable old man who Malcolm connects with on an emotional level. He kind of looks like what I wanted him to in the portrait, apart from shading etc. but every attempt to recreate the face smaller made him look like a rodent of some kind.


This is the speech frame for Malcolm sporting a Wheres Wally/Waldo hairstlye, and with, as you can see, fairly rudimentary shading.


These are the standing frames for Malcolm and the Captain.


This is Melanie, a mechanic/maintainance woman, she's supposed to be wearing overalls with the upper section wrapped around her waist, but it doeasnt really look clear. I also was going to have her hair in a ponytail, but every attempt came out crap. I also think she looks a bit 'man shouldered'.


This is the walkcycle for Malcolm, I cant make a .gif out of it, but when he walks it seems really awkward.

Any helps appreciated, thanks in advance.
Peace
Scarab

p.s. is there a way to enlarge pictures you post without them going blurry?

Greetings.
I was looking to see of there was a way to change the background at a fixed radius around the player when he walks, as though he's holding a lantern/torch.
I don't just want a lighter background around him, but a different image as though he's holding a blacklight.
Cheers for any help anyone can give me.

Peace
Scarab