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Thanks for the feedback! I actually didn't get the PM with the info on hosting... hopefully we can upload them this week, and include them in the AGS database...

Hi everyone,

I have used AGS in the past, although I confess to be one of the users who has never actually finished creating a game... But, since I am an IT teacher, I decided to teach some students how to do it!

I live in Bogotá, Colombia (South America, just in case, and I don't mean to be rude by clarifying continent), and work at a bilingual (English/Spanish) Highschool. Our kids in 9th grade have to develop an IT project, in which they have to use their IT skills to create a "product" that tries to solve a "problem". In this particular case, they were asked to use their IT skills to come up with a product that would somehow help show foreigners what Colombia is like, and how it is not at all as how the International news channels show it.

Students had the option of choosing what they wanted to do. Some of them decided to work on a video, some on web pages, and I convinced some to work on creating a video game using AGS!

They worked hard on this, and although their games are not quite there yet, I did wanted to place a post telling our story!

I am currently looking for a free place to host the "zip" files, in order to add them to the database, and (hopefully) get some of you to play them (even if just for curiosity).

Do you have any opinions towards this? We'd like to hear them! Are there any other teachers out there? Have you done something like this? Do you think something like AGS could be included in an IT curriculum as a more fun way to introduce programming concepts?

Oh, a screenshot for you to see (this was one of the best ones):
You gotta love his South Park version of "Juan Valdez" (in his game, you are Juan Valdez, the character that represents Colombian Coffee, and you have to deliver some coffee, reason why you go around Colombia)

If you've got a lab full of computers with an identical operating system and identical drivers, then it probably would have the same effect on all of them. It sounds like the DirectX overlay isn't working properly, because once the window is partially off the screen it reverts to GDI rendering.

Are you able to check for updates to the graphics drivers?

Well, it's weekend now so I'm probably not going to be at school until Monday, but I'll try Monday; however, it is my understanding that all computers are using the latest drivers...

Nope, checked that, that's not it... It's really a weird problem...

Sounds like some sort of graphics driver problem ... are you able to play any DirectX games on that PC?

Yeah, actually other directX stuff plays fine... And it's not only in one computer but in any computer from the computer lab at school (Hewlet Packard desktops, all with WinXP sp2, with all updates and latest directX)...

Does anyone else have this issue of not working fullscreen and working in window mode by moving the window to the right edge of the screen?

Well I've been searching for this but can't find an answer... I'm an IT teacher in Bogotá, Colombia (South America), and I encouraged a couple of my students to make a project using AGS. However, we've been having some difficulties.

We ran AGS on Windows XP sp2, latest DirectX installed, etc... Now, whenever trying to test games (or try ANY AGS games for that matter) full screen, it just doesn't work. We get a blank screen and nothing else (music does play in the background). If we configure it to run in Window mode, then the window appears blank. Now, here's the strange thing: if we move the window to the right of the screen, so that the right border of the window "touches" the right border of the screen, then the game displays fine and we can run it...

Any ideas as to why this happens?

Oops, sorry.
I assumed since you quoted dollars that you were in the US. My bad.

Nah, just quoted in dollars since I thought quoting in Colombian pesos would make it more difficult 

I just quoted one from Dell from their web page, it is not so overpriced as the one this guy is offering me, but it is about 12% more expensive (and with a Celeron M 1.3ghz which, if I'm not mistaken, is slower than the Sempron 2800+).

Not to throw a monkey in the wrench, but that doesn't sound like a great deal to me.
You can get a similar laptop (with a better graphics card) for about $800 (without the extras) new from Dell.
Add another 256Mb ram, an external 100Mb hard drive (if you want it) and an internal dvd burner and a one year warranty and it comes to $1150.
Or root around for a better deal on their web site.
Why buy used?

Oh, this is new, not used. Thing is that Laptops are really expensive in my country if you buy them directly from manufacturers like Dell or HP cause they pay a lot of taxes. So some "independent sellers" buy them in the US (a lot cheaper) and re-sell them here. That's the case of this laptop.

A similar Dell directly from Dell here (without the extras) would be around US$1200 or $1300

I'd say get it, man. That's an EXCELLENT deal.

Exact quote
Acer Aspire 3002LCi
   Sempron 2800+
   256RAM
   40G hard drive
   DVD/Cd burner combo (reads DVD writes CD)
PLUS:
   External 16X dual layer DVD burner
   Another 256 in RAM for a total of 512
   External 120 hard drive (which he already gave me)

Total: about US$1,100

IN laptop CPUs, the performance is negligent between the processor brands because I doubt you will do much 3D gaming, right? If it's a good deal, take it. Semprons are re-worked Athlon XP's, optimized for laptops. They have a 256k L2 cache and run at 166mhz FSB (which basically means you can only use 333Mhz DDR memory.) If you are just doing document work, internet browsing and light gaming it will be perfect. Make sure you get plenty of RAM. 512 will certainly last you.

Well it's a Sempron 2800+ , 40G hard drive (I do have a 120G external he he), 512 in RAM, DVDR 16x double density for a little less than US$1000.
I would use it mostly for web surfing, office, and PHP programming (as in DreamWeaver, a MySQL server and an Apache server which don't really need great processor to run on, I used to work with them on a 900mhz Duron 3 years ago).

I guess it's a good deal, right?

Oh, and thanks for the help!

Just a thought, but you may want to change FadeOutFlag to a bool (AGS 2.7 and up), seeing as it should only hold the values of 0 or 1.  It makes it more idiot proof .  Other than that...nice code!

Yeah, it would work better (as in more "elegant") with a bool, it's just that this is actually the first time I script with AGS so I wan't quite sure on how to do it. In other words, I had just learned how ints worked and was too lazy to check out how booleans worked on AGS  :

Thanx for the "nice code" compliment (really)

Oh, and to TerranRich: thank YOU, I do feel "satisfied" that my first bit of coding in AGS ends up in your FAQ

Hi everybody, I had a question, and since I've been  unsucessfully trying to find benchmarks comparing two processors, I thought maybe someone here can help me out

I'm buying a laptop (PC so I can use AGS :-) ), and someone's offfering a good one with a Sempron Mobile 2800+. Does anyone know how this processor compares to a Centrino or a Celeron M?

Two small questions:
1. Is it possible to download an ISO of this CD or something like that?

2. How come Cirque de Zale was not included? (I mean, it is a great game with a lot of popularity from almost everybody on these forums, oh, and just curious, I don't want this to sound as a complain or anything)

It's nothing big and I hate to sound like a corrective no-ninny, but for accuracy sakes, in the first screen where the eye's on the multi-armed candlestick, it's called a candelabra.  Chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

Thanx for the correction, gotta work on my English vocab 

Which Poser Version are you using?

Totoro: 6.0

Darth: sorry about that

[Edit by Darth]

Try to render it as a png and import it WITH the anti-alias-channel into Ags set to real color.

So, to see if I got it right: I create the images as PNG with Poser WITHOUT the anti-alias, and then I import them to AGS WITH the anti-alias? By the way, how do I import them with the anti-alias-channel in AGS?

Well, it looks quite good (maybe a few perspective problems ). The only thing that bugs me is that you use the default cursors... They just don't fit. I wouldn't use them in almost any game, especially one with graphics like these.

Thanks for the comments! You're right, and I won't use the default icons. They're just there cause I think that's one of the last things I'm gonna do (it's just changing a couple of images and it doesn't affect anything if I first code everything and then change them, right?). I'm probably gonna go for a set of black-ish icons or something like that.

Edit by Darth - I have combined your posts, please avoid double posting!  Thanks!

The York(TM) Safebox
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=21853.0

It's a short game, so I hope I will be able to release it last week of August or first week of September

Hello, I think its totally fine to work with Poser, especially when you modify the standard figure a bit, but you should definetely get ridd of those grey anti-alias thing around the character. You can se what I mean when you look at the character standing before the black sky background.

Thanks for your comments!

Yeah, I know but I haven't been able to find a way to do it (quickly, I mean). I did turn off antia-alias when I rendered it, but nevertheless the images always ended up having some pixels making it look bad. I tried different background colors (blue, green, purple pinkish, etc.), but it always happened. I ended up leaving it like this, and I'll either find a way to do it quickly in Poser, or I guess I'll end up editing one image at a time (15 frames and 8 walk cycles, should take  A LOT of time...). Oh well 

Modified:
Hmmm, I don't know if the game seems too bad or what, but I do wonder why I've received almost no feedback (compared to other new "In production" threads), so if you read this, I certainly would like to hear feedback...

-----------------------
I've finally have enough material to make a post here. I just re-read the rules, hope everything's Ok 

This is my first game, so I hope everything works out somehow...

Story:
Lucius (although the name could change) finally receives what he has been waiting for: a telegram informing him that his uncle Melvin is dead, and that he is now the owner of Melvin's mansion, and everything in it; and only two weeks after having sent his lover in hope that Melvin's feeble old heart wouldn't stand a night with her. However, the telegram also informs him that Molly (his lover) is missing. Lucius does not waste any time and heads over to his new mansion (as he couldn't care less about Molly), where a note from his dead uncle is waiting for him... Inside the mansion, Lucis can find wealth or doom, and a (hopefully) good fight trying to open up the York Safebox.

Regarding graphics: I suck at graphics, so I didn't do any of them  Most rooms are made with "Punch! Pro", character is made with Poser, and the music... well, the music will be a surprise. In other words, believe me, I know I'm terrible with graphics, and I don't have anyone helping me out with that part of the game. So, if perspective is wrong, or the graphics are not good, well... sorry.

Updated Screenshots (thanks to Totoro who helped me out with the use of Poser):

Inside the mansion:


Smoking:


Kitchen:


On the way to the family cemetery:


Progress:

-Story 100%
- graphics 70%
- puzzles 60%
- scripting 15%
- music/sound 70%
------------------------------
Modified July 16th

I'm working on an animation of Lucius smoking. It's nothing fancy (as again, I am absolutely terrible working with graphics), but I think its usable (here's a badly-done animated gif of it):


Updated July 17th

Totoro helped me out with the use of poser. I did the walk cycles again, and it seems I was able to get rid of the hideous border I had on the main character. The screenshots were updated

Ok, I was able to do it, so, in case anyone is interested, here's a workaround so you can make MIDI background music FadeOut when entering a new room (which is not possible with the CrossFading option since it only works with mp3, ogg, etc).

Here's what I did:

In the global script (before anything) I added the following:

int FadeOutFlag=0,ActualTime,EnterRoomTime;

Inside the header script I add:

import int FadeOutFlag;
import int EnterRoomTime;
import int ActualTime;

Inside any room in which I want the FadeOut to happen I add an Interaction "When player enters screen" that runs the script:

FadeOutFlag=1;

And I also have to add an interaction "When player leaves room" with
//just in case player leaves room before fadeout
FadeOutFlag=0;
SetMusicMasterVolume(80);


Finally, inside the repeatedly_execute() I added:

     int TimeDif; //Difference in seconds between
                          // the actual time and the time when
                          //the player entered the room
     ActualTime=GetRawTime();//gets actual time

   if(FadeOutFlag==1) //AKA if the player entered the room
   {
      TimeDif=ActualTime-EnterRoomTime;//how many seconds
                                                               //has the player been in the room
      if(TimeDif>=11)//if player has been 11 seconds inside room
      {
         StopMusic(); //stop music, duh
         FadeOutFlag=0; //flag goes back to normal
         SetMusicMasterVolume(80);  //music volume back to normal
      }
      else
         SetMusicMasterVolume(80-(TimeDif*8)); //lower music volume
   }