Messages

Yes he did. Ever took a look at his personal philosophies? He actually thought he was "acting upon the will of the creator". There's a reason the SS had belt buckles saying "Gott mit uns" (God with us). His beliefs were a crazy mish-mash of Germanic paganism, Young Earth Creationism, Anti-Semitism, (very, very distorted) Christianity aaand Nationalism, none of which have anything to do with science and all of which originate in philosophies much older than the scientific method. Evolutionish rationalisation was occasionally mixed into the propaganda, but it was hardly central to his philosophies. Heck, the Nazi party even had some Evolution textbooks banned, because they suggested that all of humanity was equal due to common descent.

Also, Godwin's Law. The debate is over, guys. The believers automatically lost by bringing in the Nazis. Sorry.

Yeah, just one security precaution like that isn't going to work. You need to make a function crash the game that can't be 'replaced' if the game is to still work properly. Like, calling the Display function in a way that causes an error, or inserting a loop that never finishes... or, going the more sneaky way, making the game unwinnable by removing a critical item.

I advise you to look into user-created structs and functions. There is literally no way to create new objects without these two. Characters work only as long as there is a finite, set amount of bullets you want to deal with; otherwise, that sort of breaks down.

I suppose that's one of the advantages of addressing an undersupplied niche audience. Kudos!

[Wyz]

Oh yeah I still have to resolve this one. Let's see.

AtelierGames: I'm with the previous posters here. The story is written in a very poetic tone, but in a way that doesn't impact its clarity. The background constructed isn't all that original, but the craftsmanship still is very good.

Find Therma: I liked this story a lot. The prose could probably be refined a bit in places, but on the overall, it does it job just fine. And last but not least, I think the setting could make for quite an intruiging story.

Sinitrena: I was a little confused at first because I thought I had set a limit of 1,000 words, but it seems like I didn't actually post that, so the entry's fair game. Anyway. The story could have need a bit of polishing, as typos abound and the writing is a little awkward and confusing to read in places. Bonus points for dragons not being the bad guys, though. Another somewhat intruiging concept, but the execution could be a bit better (no offense intended).

DN: That's an interesting take on an established world. I like the Take That's against our really stupid naming conventions, although once again, the writing could be more refined. We don't actually learn much about the world, though, apart from some throwaway references. And, once again, some refining couldn't have hurt.

José: Now this is an introduction that makes you wonder about the setting. Is it an "alternate history" story? The hotel was founded in 1827, and "totally reformed fifty years ago", so it can't possibly be earlier than 1877... but in real life, France hasn't been a monarchy since 1871! Or does it take place in modern times, as the plaque and the references to skiing indicate? If so, why the heck is there a French-speaking kingdom around? The whole thing seems a little more mundane than the other, more "fantastic" settings, but nevertheless - the people demand answers!  The writing was quite alright. The French interspersed really helps to set the scene, although it is a bit distracting if you're not fluent. Still, it works.

Wyz: Another really nice entry, and one that does very well at establishing the background setting. There are a few typos left, but on the overall, the story looks quite refined and polished. Also, yay for post-apocalyptic scavenger settings... I do wonder what happened...

In summary, I'm torn between Find Therma, Wyz and José. Ultimately, however, I'm going to go with... (dramatic pause)... (drumroll)... Wyz, simply because the entry seemed slightly more refined than the other two. I have naturally not drawn the trophies yet, so here are some placeholders. You can put 'em in your sig already if you want to; the pictures will get replaced with genuine trophies suddenly.

1st place: Tie between Atelier Games and Wyz. Go, both of you! This does of course make it a little more difficult to determine who gets to start the next competition, or what the theme should be. Duke it out in PM. 


2nd place: Find Therma! Congratulations, you hold the only trophy you don't have to share with anyone! 


3rd place: Everybody else - DN, Sinitrena and José! Thanks for entering. Sorry you went voteless; neither dragons nor Superman nor inexplicable French kingdoms deserve this, but there are only so many votes I can dish out.  Blame the stupid lazy forumites who abstained from voting.

I dunno. They might start sneaking in some... *shudder*... wholesomeness.

You know, if I gave a rat's ass about comics, that would probably be big news. I suppose Disney will be pretty darn mighty in parts of the entertainment sector now, though.

There's a module from the days of yore somewhere on the forums that does just this, made by one Bernie and called something like 8- or 6-direction-movement. You'll have to dig around a little.

You will probably want the SetViewport functions for that. Here's an untested example that may or may not work:

Code: ags

//repeatedly_execute
int minx=player.x-10;
int miny=player.y+10;
int scrx=mouse.x+(System.ScreenWidth/2);
int scry=mouse.y+(System.ScreenHeight/2);

if (minx > scrx) minx=scrx;
if (miny > scry) miny=scry;

SetViewport(minx, miny);

What this code does (or shoud do) is that the mouse cursor is kept in the middle of the screen, unless that would cause the player character to go offscreen. Here's hoping it actually works...

Simple indeed.

Code: ags

TextBox.Text=String.Format("The player has $%d.", player.InventoryQuantity[iCash.ID]);

Untested, but this should work.

Well, yes. Display is a blocking command. What do you want to achieve, exactly?

Heya esper, good to see you again. We'll really have to do that collaboration some day... I still have your plot outline saved to a backup hard drive. 

Well, I don't know if GUIs can be "animated" as such, but you can certainly keep manipulating their background graphic via repeatedly_execute_always.

It IS basically just whacking a sprite over the top, but with reduced hassle.

/EDIT: Effing ninjas.

A cheap way would be a screen-sized half-transparent unclickable animated GUI. I'm not sure what this would do to the frame rate, but it'd certainly be easier on the engine than a giant sprite overlay.

Additionally, if you set the z-Order correctly, you can get the film noise to be displayed BEHIND other GUIs. That could go a long way in getting the effect you're after.

Well, that function isn't an extender of Character right now, so you need to call it like this:

Code: ags

FaceDirection(player, eUp);

And not like this:

Code: ags

player.FaceDirection(eUp);

/EDIT: Wait, according to the manual it IS an extender of Character. Strange. Did you remember to do the standard imports/exports?

All the diagonal lines in your picture seem to be more or less parallel, which really doesn't work perspective-wise. I suggest you look up on one-point perspective and re-draw parts of the background.

Otherwise, what cat said.

[Three in a row, bitches!]

I know that's not a very constructive post, but...

Three in a row, bitches! 

* High-fives Vince, LGM, DanielH and TheJBurger *

(Oh and thanks to Vince for hosting, AG for the trophies, and everybody for participating. This was so much more awesome than the last two times.)

A really really cheap way would be to use a character for this. Like, make one that's essentially a giant triangle (representing the guards' cone of sight), set it to 100% transparency, and always have it hover in front of the enemy, with the small end pointing towards the guard's head. Then you can just check if the player and the cone character collide, and if they do, have unpleasant things happen. Of course, you need to tell the engine to ignore transparent areas for purpose of collision detection; I think there's an option in the main menu to do that.

This is the easiest way I can think of right now. Anything else would involve some checking of character x and y values. You can simplify it somewhat via use of vectors, though.

Yeah, sorry about the in-your-FACE-ness of my part. The plot looking pretty disjointed to me, and I figured that gluing it together to coherentness wouldn't be easy, so I just launched an ICBM against the fourth wall. It seems to have worked. 

Booyah! Go Team Us! 

That said, I'm really quite happy with the way Be Quiet turned out. As a funny aside, when I wrote the story, I imagined the guys in the boat to either be terrorists or fugitives. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be both.

I didn't really expect A Hero's Tale to tie, on account of simply liking the other one better, but it seems I have once again been proven to have stupid opinions. Ah, well, this is one of the cases where I don't mind being wrong.  That's a second Go Team Us, then, but with a different "us".