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Yeah, that was our thinking, Snarky.  We're thinking of rejigging the Create -> Get Started page to make differing routes maybe for those who want to just get stuck in, and those who would like to find help resources first.

I think a mistake many of you make is thinking most of our users are actually developers.  The vast majority of visitors to the AGS site actually come to play games, far fewer ever go near making their own game, or visiting the forums.

This is why the site isn't so strongly focused towards the dev side, rather is meant to be a balance between dev, player and community (which is really a bit of both).  Creating your own adventure games shouldn't necessarily be the only thing one sees when they land on the site, to avoid scaring off people who're only interested in playing preexisting games.  This is why we made the decision to effectively offer three different routes when you first arrive on the home page (and in the nav bar).

My take on both "image not found" pictures!

I've implemented these now, and they look great, thanks!  https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/search/&q=account-no-filter:checked;title-or-author:an+egypt+adventure;newest-releases:checked

Here's my take on requirements.png

Looks great!  I had to strip out the white background to make it work a bit better on dark mode.  Please have a look at https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/ now to see if you approve.

A bug:

-The "Search all games" page returns a 404 on Mobile.

What URL does it try to load?  It loads fine for me on mobile, so just trying to pin the issue down...

Thanks for all the other feedback, @edmundito and RootBound, we'll work our way through it!

Thanks to everyone who volunteered so far.  I'll get you added to the testing forum, and @tag you so you get an alert.

Here's my redraw of features.png!



I can give the full quality image file if approved!

Thanks a lot!  I'll just wait for tampie85 to review this too.

Cool! The new website looks very good! I like the new download section. Only wish to note that I just checked the download links and that currently all of them direct to a "404: Whoops! Page Not Found" page.

We never bothered to add the download links, since they aren't really a feature of the site itself.  I've added them for you now though!

[Current Image]

It's been a long time coming, but the new version of the AGS site is now feature complete, and ready for the community to test!  tampie85 has posted a list including many of the new features, but there are actually even more we need your help to test.

It would be great if we could get a good variety of users, ideally to test as wide a range of pages as they have access to.  That is, normal users, panel members, moderators, game owners, etc etc.

Please put your name here if you're able to help with at least some testing, and I'll add you to a specific subforum with instructions!

The site is up at https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/, if anyone else would like a quick look to play around.


On another topic, you may notice the above link has AI-generated art in a few places.  These were included as placeholders, as we would far prefer to have proper, human-created replacements if possible.  There's a list the AI-generated art below; if anyone is able to replace any of the images, we'd love it!  Please note that the art please must have exactly the same resolution in order to fit into the site's design.

Current Image	Resolution	In Context
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/features.png	726px × 790px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/game-submitted.webp	512px × 512px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/game-submit/add-game/ (only visible if game add or edit submitted)
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/requirements.png	1,043px × 663px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/400-bad-request.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/bad-request/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/403-not-authorised.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/not-authorised/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/404-not-found.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/whoops/
<New image for 500 internal server error page>	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/internal-server-error/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/image-not-found-100x60.webp	100px × 60px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/search/&q=account-no-filter:checked;title-or-author:An+Egypt+Adventure;newest-releases:checked
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/image-not-found-325x200.webp	325px × 200px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/search/&q=account-no-filter:checked;title-or-author:An+Egypt+Adventure;newest-releases:checked
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-original.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	<Original basis for dark and light mode versions>
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-dark.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ (dark mode)
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-light.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ (light mode)

"<New image for 500 internal server error page>" means a whole-new image please needs to be created to fit into the internal-server-error page.

The splash-background images are used on the main index page, and differ on dark and light modes.  The current versions are versions of the "-original" version, which we modified ourselves, but we appreciate that if someone were to draw new ones they prefer to choose specific colours for the dark and light versions!

Please feel free to send me a PM about this, or to post any redrawn versions here for the community's approval.

So what I'm thinking is:

• User compiles game for Web
• User zips up Compiled\Web folder and uploads zip using form on AGS site
• I extract zip and delete any files not in my_game_files.js to adventuregamestudio.co.uk/src/123/
• I copy the most recent versions of ags.js, ags.wasm and index.html from my own storage to adventuregamestudio.co.uk/src/123/
• On accessing e.g. adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/123 I load adventuregamestudio.co.uk/src/123/index/html in an iFrame

Would that work?  I guess I may need to either ask the user to confirm, or scan the source files somehow, to know which version of the engine (v3 or v4) to include?  But including the latest version of v3 or v4 should in theory work?

@AGA are you asking about it to integrate some ags player in some website? :p (like, for playing old games)

That's what I'm considering; something like allowing a game author to upload a zip of their Web-compiled game, which I'd then sanitise and host myself before including in a div on the site.  I gave it a quick try with a small game that had no plugin requirements, and it seems pretty easy to do.  A few questions though...

Is my_game_files.js a full manifest of the files that are specific to the game?  Are ags.js, ags.was and index.html generic?  What filenames and types is it possible could be included in this manifest?  I appreciate GAME_NAME.ags will vary, but is it only acsetup.cfg and audio.vox that could be included?

How is acsetup.cfg used by the Web player?  It would be good if I could know the resolution each game will run at.  It will need to be a certain size to fit into the site design, so I guess knowing the aspect ratio would be best, so I can use divs of e.g. 800 x 600 for 4:3 resolutions, and scale accordingly on responsive site designs.

Rather than relying on the versions of ags.js, ags.was and index.html uploaded by the user, could I keep my own copies of these to use, rather than risking executing js files uploaded by users?  Is there any relationship between the versions of the files listed in my_game_files.js and the other files?  That is, if I use the editor to compile for Web, does it need the included versions of ags.js, ags.was and index.html, or can I always keep the most recent versions of those files to use against games that may have been bundled with different versions?

If index.html is generic, could I dynamically edit it or the other files to tell it which source files to use?  Or is that determined by my_game_files.js?  Or could we perhaps pass these values in to the URL used to access the player?  E.g. adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/?audio=audio.vox&game=Beckett.ags&config=acsetup.cfg kind of thing.

Hey, @eri0o is there a way of including a .dll engine plugin in these games?  Specifically ags_agi.dll (AGS Resolution Emulation Plugin)?  I've seen a few mentions of plugins in this thread, but there don't seem to be any instructions if compiling with plugins is actually possible.

Most of us are safely home now, although I think Disco may still have a day or two before he gets back.

It was I believe the smallest Mittens to date - with seven full-time attendees, one of whom was a four-year-old child - but we made the most of the time, with loads of activities crammed into one week.  Group photo is below!

Ah, it's because that isn't a valid completed games announcement ID; you seem to have used the *message* ID, but it's the thread ID you need.

To fix this, click the # icon at the top left of a thread to find its ID: "https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=58575.new#new" in this case.  You'll see the ID is five digits, rather than the nine digits you tried to use.

This game https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2774-brownie-s-adventure-2/ was added less than two hours ago, which suggests there's something specific about what you're trying to add.

Could you please copy and paste here the exact contents of the form as you're trying to submit?

Ah, interesting!  Yeah, the forums have a separate set of rules in place, to support the recent move to pretty URLs (e.g. https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/site-forum-reports/bug-reports-suggestions/new/#new).  That was apparently excluding the rule that bounces you from https:// to https://www. on the rest of the site.  And the site isn't set up to work at all without the www, hence the issue!  Should be fixed now?

I've been struggling to pin down scotch, but I've booked the venue now either way.

Mittens 2024 (aka Mittens 2020, resurrected!) will be in Chipping Campden, England, from Friday 26th July - Friday 2nd August!

I'll send a PM to attendees with further detail.

I've fixed it.

That only leaves @scotch and @Privateer Puddin' to confirm!

Read my mind!  I literally have a reminder in my calendar for today to pursue this topic.

The house is available Fridays to Fridays, at £2,750 per week (~£300pp with the current numbers).  At first impressions, they seem to be available from Friday 26th July to Friday 30th August, which is all the dates my family could do anyway.  Is everyone still open if we said 26th July - 2nd August, for instance?

@Creamy @Disco @Matt Frith @Privateer Puddin' @scotch @Snarky

Yeah, the server's on its last legs.  I'm aiming to wipe the server and start again from scratch once the new site is ready.  I'm doing what I can to keep on top of performance issues as they arise, but hopefully it'll get much better before too much longer!

Yeah, what he said!  Fair point about the useability though.  I've added a title tag that'll explain what it's for on hover, and it'll throw an alert on click.  Neither of which is super elegant, but it's probably better than nothing...

The New Site™ will support the rewritten URLs btw, so this shouldn't be necessary for too much longer.

Ahh, that was a bug!  The previous comment field would never populate due to some faulty logic.  Should work now!  Thanks for reporting it.