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I'm not a huge fan of using the photo for the wise man's hut. It just seems a little inconsistent with the other backgrounds.

The photo is definitely just a placeholder, I intend to redraw them all in that space questey style.

[Story:]

Ever wonder...
...if you eat an apple, at what point in your digestive process does it stop being an apple?
...if 2+2 must always really be 4?
...what REALLY is the sound of one hand clapping?

If so, then ZEN QUEST is for you!

Story:
You are a young man who has decided to cast aside all his material goods and material comforts to pursue enlightenment. Your goal in Part I is to find a mentor to help you get started on the path to enlightenment.

Basic Factoids
This is my first game, which I started making way back in 2003. Unfortunately my design was too ambitious and I lost interest. Recently I picked it up again and decided to split off the first 30% into a self-contained Part I.

Progress:
Rooms: roughly 12 done of planned 15
Scripting: 50%
Graphics: 80%, but need reworking (a lot was taken from the template game)
Sound/Music: 0%
Dialogue: 60%

Screenshots:

The title screen.


Our hero speaks to a wise man.


How indeed...play and you'll find out!


Wise words indeed.


Pondering the meaning of wisdom.

ok, i got it to work. hide player character WAS ticked on after all. although im quite sure i checked it oh, about ten times. either its a UI bug or im smoking crack as usual, i guess.

aside, is it normal that movecharacterblocking while player character is hidden would have the effect of not allowing the right click of the mouse to cycle the different modes?

yes, its not that.
also of note is that the mouse cursor can be moved, but not cycled. ie its stuck on walk mode, and you cant right click to switch it. just like if the movecharacterblocking was still in effect, which is what i suspect is the case.

Having a scripting problem.
Two characters (ego and shodan) are in dialogue, where at one point i call run-script.
The run-script part contains:
Ã,  ReleaseCharacterView(EGO);
Ã,  SetCharacterSpeechView(EGO,4);
Ã,  SetCharacterView(SHODAN,28);
Ã,  character[SHODAN].room=14;
Ã,  character[SHODAN].x=200;
Ã,  character[SHODAN].y=150;
Ã,  ReleaseCharacterView(SHODAN);
Ã,  NewRoomEx(14,230,175);

Now, I have in room14, and in the beginning of the room script I have:
function room_a() {
Ã,  // script for room: Player enters screen (after fadein)
MoveCharacter(SHODAN,95,139);
MoveCharacterBlocking(EGO,143,152,1);

But it never gets to the second line (moving EGO). SHODAN appears in the scene and moves correctly to the designated point, but EGO is not in the room. Even tried a character[EGO].room=14 right after MoveCharacter(SHODAN), but it doesnt help. It's like EGO is "stuck" somewhere, and refuses to arrive on the scene!

I've tried everything I can think of. So any help in trying to figure out what's wrong would be appreciated greatly.

i agree. i also would love it if we could use "script names" (ie aliases) for at least items and GlobalInts, just like for characters.

i have to keep a separate (rather large) txt file open always to keep track of what number corresponds to what item/variable/etc.

i cant really use the "type it in" option because sometimes the answers are very obscure, even if there is only one correct answer. also syntax is a nightmare, cause a lot of these questions deal with concepts that have many "close enough" synonyms. like quietness, silence, nothing, nothingness, emptiness, might all be correct answers to one problem.

the iconic way would work at least in many cases, but it might be difficult in terms of finding an icon that everyone will associate with the correct answer, if they know it. people can be so different in their interpretations (did anyone ever make sense of the dialogue system in captain blood? didnt think so).

well, i figure im gonna put this on the back burner. its only my first game so maybe im biting off more than i can chew

so im implementing each possibility one way or another, and maybe after the game is done, i'll have clearer thoughts on what works and what doesnt. then we can all look forward to those improvements in Zen Quest II: Son of the Enlightened One

my favorite so far is to put the puzzle in playable form. but this is going to be somewhat cryptic to the player, especially as adventure players arent used to their every action counting - we're used to trying to talk to every character we see, picking up every item we find, etc, but here in this one example thats precisely WRONG, and whether or not you talk to the person BEFORE or AFTER interacting with them, or at all, is going to make a big difference in your score.
so im trying to caution the player off that by somehow making it clear his actions count and he better watch his step.
anyway, we'll see how it goes.

thanks for that tip!
the interaction options menu displays the equivalent script bit, and there it was. its the ...activeinv but i was looking for. so here's an example, in case other clueless newbies run into this same problem:
if (character[GetPlayerCharacter()].activeinv == 3) {
  Display("Item 3 was used!");  
  }

i found the "use inventory on character" bit in the character pane, but the problem specifically is how do i check for WHICH item was used?
for the life of me i cant find this in the manual.

in other words please tell me XXXXX should be:
//item 1 = cup
//item 2 = key
if (XXXXXX == 1) {
 Display("You cant unlock a door with a cup!");
 }
else if (XXXXX == 2) {
 Display("You unlock the door.");
 //blahblah bits to unlock door etc etc
 }

i must be blind but i cant find anything in the docs about this...

how do i script item interactions? specifically, i want some stuff to happen if a certain item is used on a certain character, how do i do this?

ok this isnt a "technical" question but there doesnt seem to be a more general game development forum, so...
im making game that is set in a zen monastery and thus there are lots of fun/silly riddles and koans (you know like what is the sound of one hand clapping etc)...

so lets say we take a simple riddle like:
q: i am brown and furry, what am i?
a: a bear

in the (old) sierra approach, the player has to think of the answer exactly, which can be a real pain when you cant quite think of the syntax! also its too complex for me, so this option is out.

in lucasarts, the answer is multiple-choice. im using this currently, but this is way too easy, because most of these questions are the kind where if you see the answer, you get it.

i have thought of two alternate approaches to the dilemma while still sticking to the lucasarts approach technically, and would greatly welcome input.

first, and this option i HATE, but it would work, is that the multiple choice answers are not the answers themselves, but "keywords" of some kind. someone who knows the right answer would recognize the correct keyword.
so like, the actual answers:
bear, porcupine, dog
would be "disguised" as for example,
Be..., Po...., Do....
or something like that.
this is awful but maybe if done well enough, in some form other than this ultra-stupid and ultra-simple example i just gave, it might be usable.

the other option, which im going to try to use but is more difficult, is to not have the correct answer even visible until the player has revealed his knowledge of it in some other way.
this works on a more conceptual level and is therefore much harder to implement, but for example i have one scene in mind where a monk asks you a koan (a kind of zen riddle). the player will at this point merely say "i'll have to think about that.". the player will always say that if you try to answer the question, until youve been to a certain area where the riddle is repeated but in a different form (like, if the riddle is "how many bears fit in a volkswagen", you might come to a place where you have to fit books into a bookshelf, or something).
completing this task allows you to now go answer the riddle. but how you complete this task determines whether you even have the correct answer available or not.
so for example, placing all the books on top of the bookshelf activates the correct answer, but putting half the books IN the bookshelf, and the other half on a table, doesnt.

anyway...what do you all think?

thanks people.
the "int score;" trick is simplest so im using that now.

as for the walking up to someone before talking, is this okay:
FollowCharacterEx(EGO,MAN,10,1);
while (character[EGO].walking) Wait(1);
RunDialog(1);

only trouble i can think of is that it doesnt allow you to "cancel" the talk request (like you can do in lucasarts games).
but other than that i cant think of anything better...

what would be the simplest way to have a "walk-to" point for starting a conversation?

i know i could do it by scripting a movecharacter so ego walks up to the character, then talks, but this means i have to go through all my dialogue.
is there a more elegant way?

also, ive used the GiveScore command in a number of places, and realized now that that doesnt prevent the player from just doing the same thing over and over again and racking up a huge score.

it seems silly if i have to go through all those, too, converting them all to scripts that set global variables when activated. isnt there a more elegant way to do this, too?