Messages

I swear, I didn't delete anything. Cross my heart.

I just opened a new Empty Game template and it's got all sorts of starter script in the global script, as you say. But when I started this one, the global script was empty. Totally empty. I have no explanation for it, but there it is.

Anyway, thanks again to you and Andail and Ascovel!

I copypasted what Andail wrote into the global script. Easy peasy. (I can copypaste with the best of 'em.)

How do I mark the thread title as "solved"?

HA! Well, that's my Something Learned for today.

I didn't delete anything... I started with the empty game. I thought basic mouse clicks were "built in". That'll teach me to suppose.

Many thanks to all!

-----

AND IT WORKS NOW! HOORAY!
Still too late for the competition, but at least I can finish it. Thanks again!

I thought I'd just add...

The reason I went with clickable hotspots instead of an actual button GUI is simply that I couldn't (still can't) quite get my head round how GUIs work. I can understand hotspots, so given the competition time pressure I went with the concept I could grasp.

I've dropped out of the competition now, so there's no time pressure any more. If you think a GUI would be better, don't hesitate to say so. (The entire game control mechanism is based on clicking buttons.)

[GlobalScript.asc]

I haven't scripted any mouse clicks. All I've done is set the mouse mode to Interact, and disable the other modes. I've set Interact to have a simple arrow sprite, and the other modes don't have any sprites. I can see the arrow pointer, so it must be set to Interact.

There's hardly anything to the game yet. Here's all there is of the scripting. There are nine game rooms plus a starting room, which is the only one with any contents so far. This room only exists to display the rules (part of the room backdrop). When ready, the player clicks a button (hotspot) called Mutate and is sent to one of the other nine rooms at random to start the game itself.

The only object in this room is a non-clickable glow effect that starts invisible and is supposed to come on briefly when the button is clicked. The player character is an invisible, non-clickable sprite that only exists as a way to move the game from room to room.

For test purposes, I set up some other hotspots (the hHead above) and glow effect objects (which will be used in other rooms) -- just to see if the problem was with that particular button -- and have been messing with temporary functions like the "display" one above.

The program is definitely running, and it recognises the mouse and hotspots. I can make it display a message when the mouse moves over a hotspot, and it will do this repeatedly, so it's not frozen.

GlobalScript.asc

Code: AGS

function game_start()
{
  mouse.Mode = eModeInteract;
  mouse.DisableMode(eModeLookat);
  mouse.DisableMode(eModePickup);
  mouse.DisableMode(eModeTalkto);
  mouse.DisableMode(eModeUseinv);
  mouse.DisableMode(eModeWalkto);
  mouse.DisableMode(eModeWait);
}

Room script

Code: AGS

int go;

function room_Load()
{
  go = (Random(8)+1);
}

function hMutate_AnyClick()
{
  oMutateGlow.Visible = true;
  Wait(10);
  oMutateGlow.Visible = false;
  player.ChangeRoom(go);
}

function room_Leave()
{
  GiveScore(1000);
  gPopulation.Visible = true;
  gClimate.Visible = true;
}[code=AGS]

Yep, done that! And it's happy to save and run, so there's no major "grammatical" errors anywhere.

I can make it display a message when the mouse is over a hotspot. So the program is actually running (not paused or frozen), and it knows the hotspots are there. I'm just baffled.

Thanks for the quick reply! Wow!

I've tried it both ways -- when Interact didn't work, I hoped Any Click would be more of a catch-all. But no.

At the moment, the hotspots (buttons) have objects over them to generate a "glow" effect. But the objects are non-clickable, and nothing worked even before I put the objects in. So I don't think that's the problem.

(Just to be sure, I've just tried it with Interact again. Nothing.)

I've barely begun work on my Ludum Dare game-in-a-weekend challenge. But I'll have to drop out because I've just wasted seven hours swearing at hotspots. Can anybody figure out what's going on?

This isn't an adventure game, it's a sort of mutation video-poker machine. I've disabled all mouse modes except Interact. There are no characters, no inventory, none of that stuff. (Technically, there is a player character -- with an invisible sprite -- just so that the game can move from room to room.)

The game definitely recognises when the mouse is over a hotspot, but it does absolutely nothing when a hotspot is clicked. Here's an example I've just run as a test:

function hHead_AnyClick()
{
  Display("CLICK");
}

Now, how simple is that? And yet it doesn't work. Nothing happens at all. Help!

I can recommend the Self-Extracting Archive Utility (SEAU) from Gammadyne. It's $50 (shareware), but is well worth it. You can download it and try it out for free.

http://gammadyne.com/seau.htm

I just downloaded that version, loaded up the program and hit "save walkcycle", entered "test" as the name, and it created test00.bmp to test09.bmp, all different. Did you change anything before trying it?

I wouldn't know how to change anything if I wanted to! I'll try re-downloading a fresh version and see what happens.

EDIT: Well, it's working fine now! It doesn't seem to be the same as the one I downloaded the other week, strangely enough. So, Slasher13 and anybody else having problems, try again with a fresh version.

Many many thanks, SSH!

I'm assuming I've got the latest version. I downloaded it just a few days ago from the beginning of this thread.

I've just started toying with AGS (after looking at it for years), and I have to join in the congratulations to SSH for this great program! It looks like it will be really useful.

Slasher13 is right, though. Saving the walkcycle just saves the first frame six times under six different names.

By the way, I don't understand the XML at all. What would it be used for, apart from internally to this program?

I'll agree that the most annoying puzzles are the arbitrary ones, where there's no good reason even to try whatever it is they want you to do.

I only played the demo version of "Gobliiins", but nearly threw the disk across the room at one point. There's a ferocious guard dog you have to get past, and you have a sausage. Give the sausage to the dog? No, that's too easy. You have to find a hole in the ground, stick the sausage in the hole, and then the dog goes over and eats it.

A similar sort of annoyance is when you could logically do something several different ways, but only one way is allowed. Especially if it's not the most obvious way. (For instance, you can't cut string with scissors, only with a knife.) Or games in which you can do something in one place but not in another, for no logical reason.

The most satisfying puzzles for me are the ones that are SO obvious in retrospect, because everything was there in front of your face but you couldn't see it. When it all clicks, that's a great feeling!

I still remember fondly some of the very old Scott Adams text adventures, which I played on the TI 99. One puzzle that has stuck with me:
PUSH DOOR... "The door won't open. There seems to be something blocking it on the other side." Solution? PUSH HARD.