Messages

I've got a couple of Steam keys left over from a Humble Bundle to give away.

To defeat the bots, they are posted here with a simple ROT13 cipher.

Batman: The Telltale Series:
N2LSZ-0MV7W-PQAIR

Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack:
9CASR-C6IPQ-NAOK6

If you claim one, please say so. 

Edit:
All keys have been claimed.

Spectacular! 

Thanks a ton for everything you do with maintaining my favorite game engine.

[does not]

Well, we meant the project that does not work, as even if we try to replicate the problem, we might do something different from what you did.

Oh, sure thing. Here's the broken version. The only difference is the 4 cursor sprites.

The sprite shouldn't matter, can't you share the project?

You're absolutely right, which is why it's so weird.
If you want to mess with it, here are the files. This is the working version with the new, larger sized cursor sprites. The cursor sprites that didn't work properly were sized 16x16.

Okay, absolutely bizarre...

I was determined to figure it out last night, so I started over. The issue is not in the script at all. I diligently tested the game with each change made, and I was absolutely baffled that even with every single modification implemented, it worked perfectly.

So I started swapping out the UI graphics, and with all the UI bits changed, it STILL worked perfectly, that is until I swapped out the mouse cursors themselves. POW, now I have the same problem.

For some reason, simply swapping out the default mouse cursors causes the game to get all confused about them for absolutely no reason. It's baffling. I re-imported the old mouse cursors back in, and now it works perfectly fine again. It's a head-scratcher for sure.

I tried importing the new cursors as new sprites, then switching the cursors to the new sprites while leaving the defaults alone, the problem re-emerges.

So I deleted the new sprites. Switched the cursors back to the defaults. That fixed it. I then re-made the new cursor sprites but with a bigger image. I used the size of the default "walk" cursor sprite as a base. The new cursors are much smaller, so I just stuck those graphics in the corner of the larger image. I imported the new sprites, switched the cursor images, and NOW it all works perfectly again...

I am extremely confused why that worked though. The new cursors were 16x16 images. I have them in the corner of 28x27 images now, and everything is fine. Nothing else changed.

Just a quirk of the engine maybe?

Here's a Pastebin link of the entire modified global script.

In case you don't want to dig through that mess, here's are bits of it that may be relevant:

Code: ags

//=============================================================================
// INVENTORY WINDOW
//=============================================================================

function btnInvUp_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
  invCustom.ScrollUp();
}

function btnInvDown_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
  invCustom.ScrollDown();
}

function btnIconCurInv_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory != null)
  {
    mouse.Mode = eModeUseinv;
  }
}

Code: ags

function handle_room_click(MouseButton button)
{
  if (button == eMouseLeft)
  {
    // left-click, so try using the current mouse cursor mode at this position
    Room.ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, mouse.Mode );
  }
  else if (button == eMouseRight || button == eMouseWheelSouth){
    // right-click or mouse wheel down will cycle the mouse cursor mode forwards
    mouse.SelectNextMode();
  }
  else if (button == eMouseMiddle)
  {
    // middle-click makes the character walk to clicked area, regardless of cursor mode
    Room.ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeWalkto);
  }
  else if (button == eMouseWheelNorth)
  {
    // mouse wheel up will cycle the cursor mode backwards
    mouse.SelectPreviousMode();
  }
}

Code: ags

function handle_inventory_click(MouseButton button)
{
  // InventoryItem.GetAtScreenXY could return null here
  // so using game.inv_activated instead is a safer option
  InventoryItem* item = inventory[game.inv_activated];
  
  if (button == eMouseLeftInv)
  {
    if (mouse.Mode == eModeInteract)
    {
      // interact mode selects an inventory item
      player.ActiveInventory = item;
    }
    else if (mouse.Mode == eModeUseinv)
    {
      if (item.ID != player.ActiveInventory.ID)
      {
        // use one item on another
        item.RunInteraction(eModeUseinv);
      }
    }
    else
    {
      // otherwise run corresponding interaction (LookAt, etc)
      item.RunInteraction(mouse.Mode);
    }
  }
}

Code: ags

function on_mouse_click(MouseButton button)
{
  if (button == eMouseLeftInv || button == eMouseRightInv || button == eMouseMiddleInv)
  {
    handle_inventory_click(button);
  }
  // game is paused, then don't process mouse clicks inside the room
  else if (!IsGamePaused())
  {
    handle_room_click(button);
  }
}

Oh, and "Mouse.UseModeGraphic" is present here:

Code: ags

// hide the HUD and show a GUI
function open_gui(GUI* gui_to_open)
{
  lblOverHotspot.Visible = false;
  gIconbar.Visible = false;
  gInventory.Visible = false;
  gStatusline.Visible = false;
  mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModePointer);
  gui_to_open.Visible = true;
}

Thanks for looking at this for me...

I'm diving into AGS again, and at the moment I'm working on UI. I thought I would keep it simple and base everything around the Sierra template. My plan is to create a sort of SCUMM/Sierra hybrid thing. Here's what I have so far:

Screenshot

I haven't modified it much. I moved the icon bar to the bottom of the screen and set it to always show. The status bar now only displays the current hotspot and it's directly above the icon bar. On the icon bar itself, I've removed the inventory button, save, load, and quit. This required me to go into the global script and ensure that the save and load buttons in the panel properly brought up the save and load GUIs.

Next, I modified the inventory GUI by removing all the buttons but the scroll buttons. Then I resized it and made it always show on top of the icon bar.

Of course the graphics have been changed, and everything's been resized.

In the global script, I had to remove some references to buttons that no longer exist.

It works... kinda. I can toggle between walk, interact, look, and talk just fine, and those work as expected. I can also scroll through the inventory and select an inventory item. My mouse cursor and mouse mode change correctly, and the inventory item shows up in the button next to it correctly as the currently active inventory item.

Where I'm running into an issue is selecting an inventory item seems to hijack my mouse cursor. Once an inventory item is chosen, walk and interact become the inventory item cursor, even though they work correctly as walk and interact. Strangely it doesn't seem to affect the talk and examine cursors.

I'm sure I'm missing something, as there's functionality the script probably expects that no longer exists, but I'm really struggling to identify what that is and replace it with something that works.

Edit:
The problem turned out to be the new mouse-cursor graphics I had made. Switching to the new 16x16 cursor graphics broke something, with no rhyme or reason as to why. The solution was to stick those same cursor graphics into the corner of a larger 28x27 pixel image and use those instead. It works, but it's a head-scratcher as to why just swapping the graphics broke it.

I implemented Slasher's suggestions.  Changed the color of the WalkTo mouse cursor so you can see it against black.  Added a title screen with a load button so you don't have to suffer through the intro every time.  Disabled debug mode.  Changed another little something as an homage.

Well, in the spirit of lewdness, there really is only one source of "water" she has.

If you want specific instructions, show this:

Spoiler

"Use" Alys, then "Use" the plant.  You're welcome.

[close]

Also I'm going to add a border to the walk icon and disable debug.  Thanks for the feedback.

I'm also adding a title screen with load/new game/quit options.  Little oversight on my part there.

Well, I finally did it.  I finished a game.  It's not a very good one, and it only takes about 15 minutes to finish, but by my bristly beard it's done.

I give you Alys vs The Phantom Feline Foe.

Alys is trapped in Bizarro World.  Her captor, Ignatius Cat.  Can she escape, or will she remain forever the unwilling slave to lewdness of the Phantom Feline Foe.

This is something I've wanted to do for decades, finish a game that is, not necessarily this one, or even of this subject matter.  I found AGS way back in high school, and at that time it was a DOS program called Adventure Creator.  I grew up playing Sierra adventures, and this thing put the idea in my head that I should create an adventure game too.

My desire to create games brought me to go to school to pursue a bachelors of science in game art and design, which I flunked out of after a couple of years.  I recall making a personal art gallery in AGS as a project during that time.

I've started a lot of projects.  I've never gotten particularly far on any of them.  I tell myself that what I'm making sucks, and I ultimately stop, only to start again.  Since about 2003 I've hardly created anything at all, instead starting a family and toiling away at thankless meager work.  I'm in my 30's now.  My artistic ability has stagnated, so I figured I should do something about that.

I joined an Itch.io game jam.  I had a couple of weeks to sit down and build something.  My goal was to press on and create, no matter how much I hated what I was making.  The topic was "lewd", which I figured, hey, why not?

This is the end result.  This is my debut title.  When I look back at my first game, this will be it.  What the hell was I thinking?

Anyway, enjoy it.  I actually enjoyed creating it behind a locked door so my kid didn't wander in to see me drawing a full tentacle rape background to the soothing sounds of Rob Zombie.

As for the lewdness, it's something I've had in my head since I was about 15 and discovered hentai games by downloading "True Love" on a dial up connection.  It's behind me now.  I think I got it out of my system.  My next title will be decidedly un-lewd, and I already have a pretty good idea kicking around in my head.

Thanks, and please be gentle.  Or not.  It's out there now, and belongs to the Internet.  Tear it apart if you want.

I'm going to hell for this aren't I.

I had a 5.1 setup, but I found it difficult to position the speakers in a way that wasn't completely intrusive and ugly.  Also, the sound improvement was at the cost of the rest of my family and my neighbors hating me.  When you live in an apartment, the sounds of WWII in 5.1 surround are not appreciated by anyone other than the one playing the game.

Today, I have a small 2.0 speaker setup for a little music, and I use headphones for gaming.  Maybe, one day, I will soundproof a dedicated "gaming room" and rig up a nice 7.1 surround system.

My wife and I got cozy on the sofa and watched a suitably corny movie while eating rasinettes.  Pretty standard really.

Notch and company have announced a timetable suggesting a "final" version of the game by the end of this year.  Final, of course, being what they call done before they continue adding a whole mess of stuff to it.

They also have a second project in the works.  I don't think they'll forget Minecraft for quite a while yet.  It was the game that made Notch a multi-millionaire, and allowed them to start Mojang Specifications in a very official way. 

Wacom is the undisputed king of graphics tablets.  That Bamboo is a good beginners tablet, and seems to have replaced the old Graphire series, which I started with.

Word of warning though, if she likes the tablet, things can really go crazy from there.  Later, she'll want at least an Intuos, which starts at $200 usd.  If not, she'll want a Cintique, which get's up into the thousands.

I'm using the lowest end Intuos currently available.  I can honestly say it was the best two hundred buckazoids I ever spent. (That may have been a failed Space Quest reference.  I'm not sure.)

I had been wondering what was going on with this.  I was looking at the release history, and it's very regular, until about 2 years ago when it just stops.

I used to use a good old game development program called Megazeux.  After the source code was released, the community took it, and really ran with it, developing it well beyond anything that was ever imagined.  Today, it's still popular and in use (Despite the primitive ASCII graphics.), though there has been some drama with it's development.  The centralized program fragmented into several development branches, and one particular developer got a little miffed when someone created a development branch based on the branch HE started.

Going open source can only be a good thing though, from what I have seen of this sort of thing.  You've raised this little guy from a little DOS based program on a dream and a lot of elbow grease, and now it's all grown up and you are setting it free.  I'm confident that you are doing the right thing.  You'll be proud of what AGS becomes after this.  Cracked game files will have a very minor negative impact compared to what the community is going to do with this thing. 

This is me and my beard circa December, 2010.  It's two months longer now and the moustache is untrimmed.

Hello all.

My name is Ryan Smith.  I am a 26 year old male from California.  Contrary to popular belief, this state is not perpetual sunshine and bikini-clad supermodels.  Where I live, the ocean is a three hour drive away, it snows about an inch once every five years, and the summers get to be 110 degrees F on average.

I used to casually post on these forums off and on since the 90s.  I first discovered AGS when it was DOS only, and known as Adventure Creator.  I have never made anything noteworthy, and the closest thing I ever came to finishing anything was an adventure game styled art portfolio for art school back in 2002.  The default Roger Wilco character walked the halls of a museum with some of my artwork posted on the walls.  You could examine the work close up, and a holographic tour guide answered questions from the lobby.  It was neat.  I got an A.

I've wanted to make adventure games since I was a wee lad playing Space Quest 1-3, and the first King's Quest titles.  My fondest memories are sitting next to my mom,watching her frustrate herself trying to get past the man-eating plant in Space Quest 3.  I still haven't made that dream a reality, and I've been in quite the creative rut since dropping out of game design school in 2003.  I've been trying to pick up the sketch book more often, but my skills have regressed considerably.  I hope to reverse that trend.

I am happily married, and have a wonderful 2 1/2 year old son.  I like to teach him how to do things his mom doesn't appreciate, like how to have a proper lightsaber duel, and how to pretend the remote control is a laser gun.

I sell cellular phones for a living.  My teenage goal of being a game designer by my early 20s went mostly out the window.  I've given up on designing games professionally for a big company, but I still have aspirations to get into the indie scene.  I admit, I am extremely rusty, and don't yet have much to show for my efforts.  It's not too late though.

I enjoy cycling, and rain or shine, or sweltering temperatures, I use my touring bike to commute to work, 10 miles, round trip.  This allows me to consume vast amounts of bacon and beef without weighing 300 pounds.  I still have a gut to show for my efforts, and occasionally I feel self conscious about it to want it gone.  These efforts never last long. 

I have a gigantic beard.  No, really, I do.  I used to keep a neat, trim goatee, but last September I just stopped shaving all together.  It is fast approaching epic status.  I have no plans to stop growing this beast, and when it's long enough I'm going to braid and tie it off Viking style.  I get mostly positive commentary about my beard, but my family hates it.  Especially my wife.  She still loves me though.  My son likes it.

I have not set any hard goals for the near future, but I plan to make a solid effort to get back into the drawing habit, and get cracking on AGS.  I fired it up for the first time in years today, and it looks totally alien to me.  Looks like the "easy" way of doing things has been scrapped in favor of an all-script approach.  This is fine by me.  I've learned scripting systems before, I can learn this one.  It's not too difficult, really.

Part of my lack of artistic interest lately I think has to do with a lack of feedback.  I can't show my wife.  She just says everything I do is nice.  I miss the constructive criticism of high school and college, and I don't get that much anymore.  It gave me incentive to improve, and I am my own harshest judge, so that doesn't help much.  I hope to enlist the power of The Internet to replace that void, artistically.

I look forward to conversing with you all.