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Wow.  This looks fantastic!

Thanks Kodiak, and good luck with Conspirocracy. It's a shame you haven't managed to fund it fully, but I'm glad the game will see the light of day all the same.


And now, fellow weavers, I'm proud to invite you to our betatesting. CLICK HERE to know more!

[not]

Hello,

I'm Gabriele "Abisso" Nannetti, fellow AGSer. Some of you might have heard about me in relation with Forge: Loom Sequel. Are you interested in that? Well, this is not the right topic. Check THIS ONE instead.

As a matter of fact I'm also working with another company as project-manager and game-designer for another project. It's a rpg browser-game set into a world with fantasy, cyberpunk and steampunk elements.

The game-design is almost complete and I'm currently working together with a couple of artists on some of the graphics, but we are still looking for someone to take care of the website graphics.

What we're looking for is someone who can draw all the graphical elements for the website. No coding is required and / or useful as we already have a programmer.
Design isn't necessary as well, as there already exist detailed documents and sketches, complete with proportions, size, position and overall looks of all the required elements.

Those elements are mostly: interfaces, panels, buttons, and three logos. Design is not very basic, so it's more of an artistic job than a technical one.
Style aims at semi-realism, so no cartoonish or photorealistic graphics. Just to get you an idea, the following are all decent examples of what we're aiming at:

• Example1
• Example2
• Example3
• Example4
• Example5

Deadline is not very strict and so the pace can be quite relaxed.

We will provide a contract and the job is paid of course. Exact details depend on further agreements and on parameters like the country where you live. No discrimination meant, but sadly our country makes it incredibly more complicated (and less convenient) for us to work with non EU members. Still, this is possible, so don't make that stop you from contacting us. I'm sure we'll find a suitable agreement.

More details available on request, of course. Feel free to reply here or PM me, but the most recommended place to contact us is at this address:

info*Symbol you usually put between an email name and the provider*quillothewisp*Symbol you usually put between provider and domain*com

With no asterisks, of course.

Please add a portfolio and / or curriculum vitae as an attachment.

Thanks to for reading,
-Gabriele "Abisso" Nannetti

[release date for the demo (which includes the complete Chapter One) has been set to the first half of December]

Hello weavers!

There is an important update about the game: release date for the demo (which includes the complete Chapter One) has been set to the first half of December.

Check the first post in this topic for details.

Thanks to everyone for the patience and support.
-Gabriele "Abisso" Nannetti

This time I haven't got a clue, so I'm doing some research, just for fun.

Discovered the existence of a "Double Portrait" film, but it seems highly unlikely to be related.

Also, I'd like to ask: are the portraits important / is the screenshot a good depiction of the film?

I think this is "Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA" aka "J.S.A.: Joint Security Area".

Wow, that was fast. I took the screenshot by myself and I believe it summarizes the movie very well, but still... I'm impressed!

It's Superman!

Oh my, I'm so stressed these days. Actually, after my lousy joke I meant to wrote what I'm mostly sure is the correct answer: Serial Lover. Not 100% sure, but 99% yes.

And I though I had written it! Also, it seems I missed the line "Is it a bird?" from the previous quotation.


What about this one?

It's Superman!

Thanks for the updates, SpeechCenter. I didn't have time to test anything and I won't sooner than a week from now, but I really look forward to being able to use this tool.

As per the native language proofreading, there's a simple workaround to this, which I'm sure most people could have come up with by themselves, but I'll suggest all the same: creating a <Native Language> translation file and let a proofreader rework only the necessary lines. Then, to prevent the player from using the Default language, simply put something like this:

if (!IsTranslationAvailable()) //if the player is not using a translation it means he's using the Default Game language
    Game.ChangeTranslation("<Native Language>"); //force him to use the <Native Language> translation instead.

in game_start().

It's a workaround, but really simple and not particularly inelegant, in my opinion. It works in AGS 3.1.2 SP1, but I'm sure equivalent functions exist also in other versions.

P.S. Though its name is misleading, IsTranslationAvailable() actually checks if a translation is being used or not, returning 1 or 0 respectively.

[Atmosphere:]

Atmosphere: Selmiak - very imaginative and catchy, with all the funny shapes in the mountains, and the dozens of towers. Quite original.
Composition: Kastchey - the idea of the tunnel over the river Alph encasing Xanadu in the distance and focusing the attention on it makes this the best composition.
Functionality: MeditativePixel - It would fit perfectly in a game like Fate of Atlantis, though I have to admit none of the bg (even this) is really "that" useful.
Technique: MeditativePixel - It seems the most coherent style of all, though Kastchey's one is almost there.

If both Dick Larenzo and a Northlands' Heroine show interest in Forge, all I can say is I'm flattered!

Seriously guys, thanks.

@DazJ: though I'm still waiting for a complete Dick Larenzo's game (demo was really funny), I wish you the best with Calm Waters DazJ.
@Corby: good luck with Heroine's Quest, and thanks for your help with Forge.

[I'm now looking for a public relations publicist / journalist]

Hello Tramponline, and thanks for your interest.

I owe a lot to AGS and this board, so I apologize for not keeping it updated. Sadly the little free time I have must be directed fully towards coding (bug-fixing at the moment) and minor pixel jobs. I have lots of threads spread throughout the Web, but truth is I never update any of them. On the other hand I try to post monthly updates on forgegame.com, so I encourage anyone who's interested to check it out often. You don't even have to sign in if you're not interested in being part of the community, as you can read the summaries on our homepage.

As someone might have noticed, anyway, I'm now looking for a public relations publicist / journalist for the exact purpose of keeping contact with fans and updating thread on all the boards and blogs. I understand the importance of spreading the word and keeping the interest high, but I'm hardly the best person to do such a thing, as I'm a very reserved guy in real life as well.
I think as Forge is my beloved child though, and I intend to do all it takes to keep it healthy and thriving. So, yes, I'm taking care of it, don't worry.

Hope to see you and the other fellow weavers on our boards.

Sincerely,
-Gabriele "Abisso"

Either you want to reveal very little of the plot or you still have to fully develop it. That said, your art astounds me, and I especially love the colouring style of the backgrounds. I'm a bit unsure if I like the idea of using 3d models for the characters, as I find they look out-of-place in most games. Though I have to admit I wasn't sure that they were based on 3d models until I read it on your post.

If I wasn't so caught up with Forge at the moment, I'd be very tempted to lend my fairly decent coding skills to this project. I wish you the best with it, anyway.

Thank you SpeechCenter for a neat and useful program.

The automatic insertion of the speech metacode at the start of a line is something I truly appreciated, although the ability to choose if the editor should do that or not might be a wiser choice. There can be situations where the game-maker doesn't want the speech to be played on some translations, or on some specific lines of a translation.

I also spotted an undesirable behaviour by the way:

if you have lines starting or ending with extra "spaces", the spaces are not visualized in the editor. I know this might look like a non-problem, but there are multiple reasons for having extra "spaces" and wanting the translator to preserve them in his / her translation.

Other than that, I'd suggest adding an option to re-organize the display of lines by alternating original ones to translation ones (more or less like in the original .trs file). Having them one after another is really helpful to keep the line length similar (which sometimes is imperative) and I don't see any particular advantage in the side by side placement.
Another useful feature would be the option to add / remove the speech metacode (&xxxx) to all the appropriate lines with a simple command / button.
And of course, find / replace could also be precious to all those who use special SCI fonts with foreign characters in place of useless ones.

Still, a really nice tool overall.

First of all, I forgot to mention I'm using AGS 3.1.2 SP1. My bad, cause maybe something worked / works differently in other versions.

That said, you're correct about both on_key_press and on_mouse_click, of course. What I said was incomplete: on_key_press (and probably also on_mouse_click) doesn't get called when the game is paused during a blocking script. I tested this and I'm sure.

For the same reason you can't pause/unpause the game during, let's say, a blocking animation, unless you put something like this inside repeatedly_execute_always:

if (isKeyPressed(eKeySpace)) PauseGame();

Which isn't exactly a nuisance, after all, but still not particularly straightforward for a newbie, I guess. Being unable to pause the game inside a blocking script makes pausing itself almost useless, in my opinion.

Even f you do this, anyway, the code inside repeatedly_execute_always still gets executed after the PauseGame() command.

The workaround I suggested is the only usable one I've found at the moment to recognize keyboard input in such a situation, and it works (tested it). As per the other half of the problem, which ironically it's exactly the fact the code inside repeatedly_execute_always continues to be executed during a pause (including the rest of the function that calls PauseGame()) I will find some workaround, I'm sure.

I'm not really satisfied with such an inelegant solution to an apparently simple problem: being able to customize the standard InputBox would have been a wonderfully easy and clean one instead. But at least it works.

Hello Khris and thanks for your interest.

The function that makes the custom InputBox Visible gets called inside repeatedly_execute_always. It executes some lines of code, then makes the custom InputBox Visible, and then does something else.

What continues to execute (even when PauseGame() gets called) are the following lines of code in the same function and then all the code inside repeatedly_execute_always.
Which makes sense, of course, since "always" means "always".

But still, when Game.InputBox is called, not even that portion of the code executes and yet the user is able to type in the built-in InputBox.
When the game is paused with PauseGame() or with a Popup GUI instead, the user can't type anything in the custom InputBox (because on_key_press never gets the chance to be called).
I read somewhere during my researches about this topic that there are only a small number of situations when the script is REALLY paused, one of them being the Display function being called. Unfortunately I can't recall where I read that, but I'm almost sure it was CJ himself who wrote it.

By the way, in the meantime I figured out a workaround to allow the player to type in the InputBox even in that uncomfortable situation. The solution isn't particularly elegant nor compact, but still should work (I have to test it, and I'm too tired to at the moment). Basically I'll need to add an IsKeyPressed check inside the repeatedly_execute_always function for EACH character I want the user to be able to type and if the check returns true Append the character to the textbox.Text.

I'm still open to more elegant suggestions though, e.g. one that stops the scripts from being executed but still accepts keyboard inputs (like Game.InputBox does).

Hello colleagues.

It's been a while since I asked for something related to scripting but after several frustrating hours spent with no significant result, I decided it could have been worth asking. I truly hope this matter has not been asked elsewhere, but a thorough search didn't reveal anything relevant.

What I need is to implement a script that works EXACTLY like Game.InputBox, but with a custom GUI. Hehe, now most of you would probably think it's the same old question about a custom InputBox. Well, it's not, of course.

If you use the breakdown debug feature in AGS and you place the breakpoint on this line of code:

Game.InputBox("Type in something");

you will see that after the line is executed, no other script will be, until the user presses Return or one of the buttons in the InputBox.

I haven't been able to replicate this effect no matter how hard I tried. PauseGame() is not a good option as the code still gets executed and the same thing happens if I set the GUI Visibility as "Pause game when shown".

To elucidate more on why I need such a thing, the reason is I want this GUI to become Visible when the user presses a certain key and this should be possible in any room and even during blocking scripts. No other line of code should be executed until the user has pressed RETURN and of course he should be able to type in the textbox before that happens.

Thanks for reading.

[February 25, 2013 Update: check the first post of this thread to know more about it.]

Thanks to all of you. I wish I could work on it more and have a stable team, but sadly it's not like that. Progress is slow but constant and that's the only thing I can guarantee.

February 25, 2013 Update: check the first post of this thread to know more about it.

Thanks for the kind offer. You've got a private message.

Fantastic job! Looking forward to it.

Thanks fózi!

Nice! I was almost worried it disappeared into a puff of smoke.

Glad to see it's still being Worked on, any plans to also do a Little Radio Play to fill in Gaps?  (There was a Loom audio drama apparently with only a few of the collectors versions of the game.)

Maybe extra background prior to the start of the game?

Actually there is more than a plan to do an entire Forge Audio Drama: it's currently being written and I'm already in contact with a possible voice actor as well.

Moreover, some Loom gaps (especially those involving Rusty) will be filled in Forge and some of them will be fully playable (not simple cutscenes).