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Alright, demo time!

We've released a playable demo for Mage's Initiation;

Download the Mage's Initiation Demo here

Be sure to read our latest Kickstarter update as well!

So, we hit our funding goal a few days back and now have a list of really nice stretch goals posted up (which include extra resin character figures as rewards for existing backers at certain tiers)!

Thanks very much to all who have supported the game thus far, and feel free to check out the page and take a look at our new stretch goals list up the top!

http://kck.st/mages

Hey, hey, hey! Just wanted to give you incredibly good-looking people a heads-up that Mage's Initiation is now up and humming on Kickstarter.

If you're super quick, you can still nab a digital download copy for $6. We have some other nice collectibles and swag on offer too at higher levels. Feel free to check it out and thanks for looking!

http://kck.st/mages

I suppose the question is whether anyone here who's already familiar with AGS would be willing to prioritize working on porting AGS to Allegro 5 (and getting Mac porting functional) - essentially treating the task like a real job or work-for-hire over a specific period of time?

I know several commercial AGS game developers are chomping at the bit for this and would perhaps be willing to pool money into paying someone to prioritize and complete the task. Himalaya will also be launching a Kickstarter shortly for Mage's Initiation and I'm going to factor in a stretch goal to assist with potential porting costs. Assuming it is raised, I'd be happy to contribute that funding towards the cost of paying someone to prioritize getting the AGS engine (and ports) up to speed.

I don't see anything in the last changes that would cause music to stop. Would it be possible that the issue is caused by something else specific to the phone? I had weird issues that were caused by file system corruption which rather easily happens on Android in my experience.

I thought so too, but then I tried playing with it a bit more and I think I've pinpointed the issue. It actually happens on my S1, Galaxy Tablet, and S3 and I have confirmed the bug and the solution on all devices. The "no music" glitch seems to be related to the "Needs MIDI patches on the SD card" setting. If you have this option checked in an individual game's preferences, then the digital music will play. However, if you have it unchecked, then the digital music will not play.

I actually downloaded several older versions of the AGS app from the daily page and have confirmed that it happened as far back as AGS_2012-11-29_17-36-18.apk.

Ok, here is the problem: Starting with 4.0 there is no more "menu" functionality. Instead apps are supposed to use the "action bar". The problem is that AGS runs fullscreen which hides the action bar. I also don't see an easy way to display it (or the menu) on demand without interfering with the game itself.

A quick and dirty solution would be setting the target SDK version to Android 2.x. This will force the menu button to appear but it will also make all UI elements look very huge and ugly. Another solution would be replacing the "longpress on back" functionality with popping up the menu. At least I can reproduce the issue in the emulator because with recent updates it seems to display software buttons correctly.

I still don't understand why they didn't just keep both as physical buttons on the tablet devices, like they do on smartphones.

Hmmm... the problem with long-press is that Jellybean seems to come with a "multi-window mode" toolbar that is auto-configured to appear whenever you long-press the back button. I'm sure it can probably be reconfigured or disabled someplace, but by default it hijacks the long-press function when AGS games are running. In addition to that, the Kindle Fire doesn't register long-presses on the Back button either.

The only other thing I can think of would be to make the Back button handle everything by popping up the menu instead, which would probably mean sacrificing its ESC key functionality.

I guess this is more of an engine implementation, but would it eventually be possible to let game authors put a perpetually-visible AGS GUI button on their game screen, which would invoke the Android's Menu button functionality when pressed?

I pushed a possible fix.

Thanks! From what I've tested so far, it seems to work.

Do you mean that if I buy a full version of Al Emmo, it will still have the modified executable? Or will I have a new exe free of modifications?

Check your PMs, Crimson Wizard.

Alright, just tested this on the Kindle Fire and I'm happy to report that the toggle keyboard option does show up when hitting the menu button, and the on-screen keyboard turns on and off just fine. Nice work!

The keyboard still isn't possible to bring up on the Galaxy tablet/Honeycomb, though. And a small correction; the menu button actually disappears when you run the AGS app (not when you tap on a game from the list, like I previously reported). I took a video of this here. Watch at the end, after I hit the "Back" button and tap "yes" to quit the game. the menu button (which had disappeared) re-appears after AGS closes.

Now, I just tested the latest version on my Galaxy S1, Galaxy tablet, and on a Kindle Fire. In all cases the music did play. For some reason, it just refuses to play on my Galaxy S3, which is very strange, as the sound effects work. The music worked without any problems on my S3 in all the previous builds.

Another peculiar anomaly is that Al Emmo averages about 44 FPS on my 'ancient' Galaxy S1, yet fluctuates between 35 and 40 FPS on my Galaxy S3, which is technically superior (dual core) and much newer. This is with identical settings for the game on both S1 and S3 ("Hardware" Renderer setting)

Thanks for the upload!

The FileWriteInt error no longer occurs during start-up when the game loads. However, now there's no music. It's really odd! Starting the game from scratch results in no music in the logo movie, title screen, or game. Sound effects, ambient sounds, and speech all play just fine, though. (This happens in all games, not just Al Emmo).

For some reason, Mage's Initiation stays on a black screen for about 10 seconds before the game actually loads up. Previously, it would just start instantly.

Haven't yet tested the new "toggle keyboard" option out on the Kindle Fire, but will let you know how that goes. Will post an update soon-ish.

If you have the full version and it doesn't work on Android, let me know and I can send you a game .exe without the DRM.

[Samsung Galaxy tablet:]

Been testing out the latest version and I've got a few updates and new reports:

1) The KQ3 Redux issue I reported in my previous post above (about the baseline issues and z-order messing up) are not actually due to this at all. Sorry! The actual problem -- and you're aware of this already -- is that I was running the game with the "Hardware" renderer and when opening the closet/drawer in the wizard's bedroom, an ambient tint is set to make the game background look a bit darker. The "Hardware" and "Hardware (Pixel Perfect)" settings cannot handle tints, which is why it was making the screen black with non-transparent rectangles where room objects were. The "Software" renderer works fine, though.

2) When running Al Emmo I get this crash on startup, which has only started happening since AGS_2013-01-17_19-21-51.apk:

in "GlobalScript.asc", line 263
Error: FileWriteInt: invalid file handle; file not previously opened or has been closed.

The FileWriteInt line in question is in the game_start() function.

3) An odd glitch that I noticed. I have "use custom preferences" checked for KQ3. For some reason, when I turn the phone sideways, the "use custom preferences" box suddenly shows as unchecked and all the other options revert to the 'default' state. If I then turn the phone upright again, all the checkboxes reappear. I can keep turning the phone sideways and upright and the options keep changing back and forth.

The opposite happens for another game which does not have "use custom preferences" checked. If I turn the phone sideways, then all the buttons do become checked and vice versa.

In the general/Global Preferences, I do have custom settings and checkboxes ticked. So maybe the individual game settings are getting confused and displaying those when turned sideways and upright?


Also, I can confirm that the "not being able to access the keyboard" issue persists with the Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy tablet. But the reason why seems different on both:

Samsung Galaxy tablet:
Some of these tablets don't actually have a physical "menu" or "back" button. Instead, they display virtual "menu" and "back" buttons that sit on a persistently-visible toolbar at the bottom/top of the screen while the game (or any other app) runs. In this case, the "menu" button is visible when you run the AGS app (i.e. where you can can see the games list), but it instantly disappears from the toolbar as soon as you actually run a game. The "back" button remains visible the entire time, however.

Kindle Fire:
Below is a shot of KQ1 running on the Kindle Fire:



Note that the only "button" visible is a virtual upward pointing arrow,located on a toolbar beneath the game window. Tapping this upward arrow button makes the virtual "back" and "menu" buttons appear on the toolbar. Tapping the "menu" button makes the "Keys" and "Exit Game" options appear, as expected. But long-pressing it doesn't make the on-screen keyboard appear. Likewise, tapping the "back" button acts like hitting the ESC key, but long-pressing it doesn't make the "Exit Game" prompt appear.

Ah, sorry about the confusion. Yes, I understand that's how it currently works (and thanks for the confirmation!) I was more or less asking whether this specific Linux port is stable enough *right now* to release a commercial quality game? Not being a Linux user, I'm unsure what process is involved in packaging an AGS Linux game for distribution.

The point you raised about the AGS editor being able to compile and create game data without the windows executable attached is a very valid request, I think. From a commercial developer's standpoint, it feels cleaner somehow to not have remnants of the windows version floating around in the ported game folders. Additionally, by selling games on the Google Play store, the current Android port's launcher (which displays a library of AGS games and allows you to run any one of them) is unsuitable. In the case of AGS titles on the Google Play store, Android AGS games would really need to be compiled by the editor as a standalone .apk file which installs the game in question to the device, and then launches into it directly whenever you tap the icon, bypassing the menu completely. (Or at least offer it as an option in the compile settings).

Forgive my ignorance here, but is it actually possible to currently compile and release a fully functioning Linux version of an AGS game with this port?

I know that Bero ported our King's Quest and Quest for Glory remakes a few years back and had them working flawlessly, but he doesn't seem to be active here anymore and I'm not sure if he used an 'official' AGS port or handled it entirely himself.

Any info on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was just playing around with the latest Android build from the daily builds page. I was running King's Quest 3 Redux on a Samsung Galaxy tablet running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). I noticed a few little quirks that didn't seem to exist in previous builds:

1) If you go into the wizard's bedroom and open the cupboard on the right OR the drawers on the left, a full-screen close-up of the area in question appears on-screen with black borders surrounding it. However, some room objects, such as the wizard's chamberpot and the cupboard doors get drawn in front of the black background. Seems to be a Z-order baseline glitch.

2) I'm not sure if it always worked this way, but I noticed when loading the AGS app on Android 3.2, the menu button on the tablet's lower graphic bar just disappears. This happens in both the AGS games list and when running a game. Unfortunately, it means there's no way to bring up the on-screen keyboard or other F keys associated with that menu.

3) An old bug I reported, is that if you have Swype installed (which lets you drag your fingers across the keys to input words, rather than tapping one key at a time in the traditional way, then AGS simply doesn't recognize any keystrokes at all. It doesn't make any difference whether they keys are swyped or tapped individually - if you have the Swype keyboard active, keystrokes just won't register and the textbox remains blank. Changing back to the default Samsung keyboard is the only way to get it working again.

Also, I was just curious if any headway was ever made on implementing gestures which could be programmed to accomplish certain in-game actions? (Would be very handy for fast-paced, real-time battle actions) or if the keyboard could somehow be made to auto-appear when an AGS textbox field is tapped on.

Thanks, guys. Glad you're digging it.

cianty: That's right. The Mage's Initiation webpage has been online since February 2011. Progress has been constant, but we experienced a bout of Development Hell due to unforeseen circumstances and a high-turnover rate, the likes of which I've never encountered on any game project I've worked on before. Also, being a hi-res,full-length game with RPG aspects and 4 playable character classes, it tends to increase the scope for issues and bugs, so we need to spend time scripting everything very carefully and thoroughly.

We've actually decided to run a Kickstarter campaign for this game in early 2013 so that we can finish and release it as quickly as funding permits. If the campaign succeeds, we'll also re-include some neat class-specific quests that had to be cut due to budget constraints. Plus, it will also provide the perfect means to distribute the Collector's Editions and swag which I'd always intended to offer as a pre-order anyway. So, stay tuned for that.

Haha that's unlikely at this juncture, cianty. There's still a ways to go on the development front!

Hmmm, that reminds me I'll have to remember to update that website graphic...

Thanks! Yeah, the game is certainly being developed with AGS.

In regards to the character sprites, if you suggest making them even larger I think ProgZ might have a fit! Actually, these sprites contain about 4x the detail of a standard 320x200 game character sprite, so the process of creating them has been incredibly time-consuming. Making the characters larger than the current size would have been unfeasible, so we had to determine a reasonable a trade-off. We also didn't want to scale the sprites over 100% because then it introduces uneven pixelization and just looks bad. When the game is played at full-screen mode, however, the characters look good and are large enough to click on without any problems. It's something you adapt to pretty quickly.

[UPDATE: November 28th, 2018: Mage's Initiation To Be Released January 30th 2019]

UPDATE: November 28th, 2018: Mage's Initiation To Be Released January 30th 2019

After a decade of hard work, Mage's Initiation finally has a release date!
Set your calendars for January 30th, 2019.

We also have a new preview teaser video to whet your appetite for what's to come.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CKW-32Qki_k

The game now has a page on Steam and you can start wish-listing it. So be sure to do that and help us spread the word!
We're also (still) in talks with GOG.com about releasing on their platform.

Last but not least, we are currently working on native Mac OSX and Linux ports and hope to have them ready for release day. Fingers crossed.

Here are a few up-to-date screenshots:














UPDATE June 4th, 2013: Contest - Win a prize pack worth over $450 USD!

We're running a giveaway to help promote Mage's Initiation on Steam Greenlight.

For the chance to win a huge bundle of collectible items valued at over $450 USD, just follow these simple steps:

   1) Visit the Mage's Initiation Greenlight page and click the "Yes" button to upvote the game.

   2) Click the "Favorite" and "Follow" buttons (under the screenshots).

   3) Leave a comment (This step is necessary so that we can choose winners from the list of usernames assigned to the comments).


And that's it! Three entries will be randomly chosen when Mage's Initiation gets greenlit and this contest will remain open until that time. Comments/votes that existed before the contest was announced will also be eligible to win.

Second Prize: Two runners-up will each be gifted one game of their choice (of any value) to their Steam account.

First Prize: One lucky winner will receive all if the items below:

- 4 Game boxes (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water) containing game and soundtrack CDs
- 1 Standard DVD Case/copy of the "Mages Initiation" game
- 4 D'arc Polyresin figures - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water (4" x 3" x 3")
- 3 Digital Copies of the "Mage's Initiation" game
- 1 Digital Copy of the "Al Emmo & the Lost Dutchman's Mine" game
- 1 Digital "Al Emmo & the Lost Dutchman's Mine" soundtrack (53 Tracks)
- 1 "Mage's Initiation" Poster (18" x 24")
- 1 "Mage's Initiation" 50-page Hardcover Art book
- 2 Bronze "Severed Circle" Pendants
- 3 Complete sets of character trading cards (15 foil packs, 120 cards total)
- 1 Art Lithograph, Signed by JP Selwood (8.5" x 11")
- 2 Cloth Maps of the Land of Iginor (11" x 17")
- 2 T-shirts (Mens or Ladies sizes)

Thanks!


UPDATE March 15th, 2013: Playable Demo Released!

Download the Mage's Initiation Demo here

UPDATE February 26th, 2013: The Kickstarter is live right now!

Hello! This game has been in development for a few years now, so it seemed like a good time to post it here on the AGS forums!

Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements by Himalaya Studios is a Point & Click adventure game which includes RPG and character-building elements. It will be similar in style to Sierra's Quest for Glory series with a set of unique spells for each of the 4 character classes. The game will also feature a Diablo-esque battle system with loot drops.


The Story:
D'Arc is sixteen years old. He has trained extensively in elemental magic for the past decade of his young life under the discerning eyes of the Mage Masters of Iginor. Confined to an existence of academics and magical mastery in their mystical tower, the inquisitive student often wonders what it would be like to set foot outside into the world that he has been secluded from; a world that his Masters deeply shun.

As with all young Mages in training, D'Arc's moment of initiation arrives and he is summoned to the Hallowed Hall, where the four Mage Masters put him to the test. D'Arc is instructed to complete three tasks which will test his magical and mental strength to full capacity.  He must return to the Mage's Hall bearing a symbol of proof that he has conquered each task: a lock of hair from banished priestess, the unspoiled shell of griffon's egg, and the horn of a trinicorn. On his quest, D'Arc inadvertently stumbles upon a sinister political scheme that threatens the very existence of sleepy land. A faceless fiend conspires to shatter the order and tranquility that the Mage Masters have long held at equilibrium, bringing chaos and tyranny in their place.

Join D'Arc on a perilous journey across the fantasy-medieval land of Igninor. Brave the ominous forest where redcap goblins stalk. Trek across a barren and lawless wasteland. Navigate vast bodies of water where evil masquerades as beauty. And ascend beyond the lofty mountain peaks where the hostile Flyterians dwell. It is time for D'arc to prove himself. Succeed and he shall join the ranks as a fully-fledged Mage, gaining the respect of his Masters and peers. Fail and nobody shall remember his name. Do you have what it takes to become a Mage?

Screenshots:

Exploring the blood-spattered kitchen of the Redcap Goblins.


This enchanted palace is not all that it seems.


Goblins, and Manifestations, and Demons... Oh my!


The ever-watchful Mage Masters have selected 3 tasks for D'Arc. Don't disappoint them!


Is this lake as placid as its appearance suggests?


Round 1... Fight!


All the Magical literature a Mage could ever dream about is contained within the Reading Hall.


Are the mountain-dwelling Flyterians fierce fearsome foes or flighty feathered friends?


Development Team:
Written & Designed by: Daniel Stacey (Cadbury Wookie)
Programming by: Chris Warren, Jason Mearls, Morgan Busch, Stijn van Empel (AGD2, Gargin, Antipus, Erpy)
Background artwork by: John Paul Selwood & Emily Selwood (KQArtist & rosel1)
2D cutscene movies: Jess Bebe (Akril)
Character Sprites & Lead Animation by: Shane Stevens (ProgZMax)
Animators: Carlos Hoyos Barcelo, Jeremy Kitchen, Johan Botes (Dr Jones, Jerminator, Gronagor)
Dialogue Portraits by: Britney Brimhall (AGD1)
Music by: Brandon Blume (MusicallyInspired)
Website, Collectibles, & Promo design by: Eriq Chang


Features:
-A full-length adventure game title.
-Beautifully illustrated Hi-Res character & background artwork.
-No dead-ends or over-reliance on trial & error puzzle solutions.
-Multiple interfaces. Play the game in intuitive LucasArts style or in Sierra style for added challenge.
-Look, Use, Talk and inventory speech and descriptions for absolutely EVERYTHING.
-Play as one of four Mage classes based on the elements (Water, Air, Fire, and Earth).
-Each class has specialist spells and a unique personality to help negotiate puzzles and overcome adversities.
-A refined stat-building system that doesn't rely on the monotony of skill-grinding.
-Class-based solutions to nearly every game puzzle and multiple game endings.
-Learn powerful combat spells and duel with magical foes to gain wealth, valuable items, and experience.
-Full Voice Acting, Lip-syncing, and Digital Music Soundtrack


Release Date:
January 30th, 2019


We're currently reserving pre-orders for Limited Edition copies of "Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements". This is a Collector's Edition that contains high-quality boxed packaging, an artistically designed game disc, a printed cloth map of the land of Iginor, an archaic spell book page, character trading cards, and a Mage's Initiation poster.

The Collector's Edition packaging and bonuses will no longer be available after the promotional period ends. At the present time, no advance payment is required to reserve a pre-order of Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements. (Notification of when to make payment for pre-orders will be announced only when the game is nearing its release date.)

Please note that pricing is To Be Announced. (We request that only customers who genuinely intend to pre-order the Limited Edition put their name on this list. Note that the pre-order list is opt-in, so after putting your name down, you'll need to confirm your pre-order by clicking on the link in the e-mail you're sent. You can also remove your name from the pre-order list at any time. For general information on the game when it becomes available, please join the Himalaya Newsletter instead).

To learn more about Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements and this special announcement offer, visit The Mages Promo page.

Remember to Like the Himalaya Studios Facebook page and Twitter for ongoing updates about the game.

JJS has done an excellent job at implementing a lot of new things in the Android port. It has improved greatly since the first versions he posted. If you check the bug tracker at http://jjs.at/tracker/ you can see some of the issues that have been changed and fixed since (things like ARM support for Theora video playback, render-to-texture, and OpenGL driver support).

To lock the rotation of the screen orientation, you can long-touch on the game's title from the menu. That'll allow you to open a preferences menu for the game in question (which will store an individual android.cfg in that game's folder). There's an option in that menu allowing you to lock the screen orientation to either vertical or horizontal (as well as a bunch of other options).

Just wanted to chime in and mention that I'd also be open to being involved to some extent. Although, it would probably be easier to share management duties between 1 or 2 reliable people due to the level of commitment required. I've been using AGS for a decade and have seen it evolve over the years (KQ1VGA started development in the DOS editor!) I also played a big role in helping CJ refine the first version of windows editor before it went public and lot of the features that are part of AGS today stem from various suggestions I made after running into brick walls developing the KQ2 and QFG2 remakes (i.e. regions, pamela lip-sync files, and a ton of functions).

I can also say, as a developer who has worked on both free games and commercial games with AGS over a long period, I think I have a fairly good concept of balancing the commercial interests of the engine against the non-commercial interests. It's true that commercial developers will want extra features added from time to time, but these additions aren't always mutually exclusive and non-commercial users will often find them useful as well. I also had the thought that if I (as a commercial developer) wanted specific features prioritized for commercial titles, I'd have the option to pay a programmer to implement those features faster and then roll them into the main source code. These features would, of course, be a donation to the AGS community at large and would be available to any user of the engine, commercial or otherwise, to take advantage of or build further upon.

Two big issues facing commercial AGS developers (portability notwithstanding) are the savegame incompatibility issue between versions (say if views are changed or integers added). And another thing I mentioned to CJ a while back, which he showed interest in, was some kind of in-built patch compiler for AGS that can compare the previous version(s) of your game to the current version to create small patch update files which only include the differences between versions. At the moment, AGS compiles its resources in an arbitrary manner so even commercial utilities don't always produce very small patch filesizes for AGS games.

Anyhow, just throwing this out there for consideration in case any of it would be helpful. I can see a lot of ways to make the engine more useful in the future and due AGDI's games being rather complex, we've had a penchant for finding undiscovered bugs in the engine, too. So if my feedback or contributions can help in the roadmap for AGS, let me know.

[paid]

Hey guys,

Himalaya Studios is on the lookout for an AGS scripter to help expedite progress on our upcoming RPG/Adventure game, Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements:



Please note that this is a commercial paid project. A contractor arrangement will be worked out with the successful applicant. If you think you fit the bill, please send an application!

Applicants should have the following qualities:


1) Self-motivated.

2) Experienced with AGS scripting.

3) A passion for Role-Playing/Adventure games (like Quest for Glory and King's Quest) and be familiar with how both genres work. (Bonus points for clever puzzle design ideas & creative solutions).


If interested, please send an e-mail to contact@himalayastudios.com with the subject line "AGS Programmer" and let us know your skills, what AGS/Unity games you've worked on, and what you think you can bring to this project. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks!

JJS: The mouse pointer movement is fixed for me in the newest build and seems to follow my finger quite well. On my Galaxy S, the pointer doesn't move at twice the speed, as others have experienced.

Also, I have sent you a PM with the Al Emmo v3.0 (AGS 3.21) download link for testing hi-res related issues. In my PM I've posted examples of how to recreate several of the issues I mentioned earlier in the thread.