Topics

In the last few days a fog descended on the UK, seemingly engulfing the AGS forums. It made me realise that I check the boards embarrassingly frequently.

I hope the rest of you used the down-time as an opportunity for reflection and quiet meditation.

Hi guys, I've just discovered a Russian game called Narok:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8n-NgOYr0

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?219884-quot-Narok-quot-finished-blender-game&highlight=narok

It's an interesting proof-of concept as far as action/adventures in Blender go, the idea of which was discussed a little while ago. It's pretty cinematic and a lot of work has clearly gone into it.

I have reservations (including the walking animations and an off-putting opening puzzle) but it's a step in an interesting direction.

Thought you might be interested!

[IndieGoGo]

Hello everyone,

I'm studying an MA in filmmaking at the London Film School, and I'm raising funds for my graduation film through IndieGoGo.

It's called The Library of Burned Books. Please have a look at the pitch video, it has jokes and me looking like an idiot on Hampstead Heath.

Here is a propagandist poster from the film:

If you like the pitch, please support this project by sharing the link with any wealthy uncles you may have. And, if you feel compelled to do so, by donating money.

Other films/drawings I've made are here: www.abeckettking.com

Thank you,

Ali

It's all getting a bit smashy here in London.

I wanted to say hello to other London-dwelling AGSers. It's quiet where me and Nelly live, but she works in Brixton (where it's even less quiet than usual) and lots of our friends are in Hackney.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

It's a real shame, because these are riots without a real motive. Some people are venting legitimate frustration, but there's no ideology or meaningful protest. Just a lot of people taking advantage of an opportunity for violence and looting.

On a side note, I'm off to Greece tomorrow (they know how to riot there, I'm going to pick up tips).

- Al

[Towel Day]

No, I'm not competing with Calin on the non sequitur front... I just discovered that today is Towel Day, a celebration of the life and works of Douglas Adams. I am currently sitting on a chair with my towel (though I must admit it's just a coincidence and the towel was here before I found out about towel day).

Dualnames posted about it back in 2009, but we seemed to have forgotten about it since then. The shame! This year the guys behind it have produced an animated short demonstrating why a towel 'is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jNpyEhJldo

Spread the word!

Hi!

I think I've found a bug with translations. This bit of script doesn't seem to work in Spanish:

Code: ags

if (iPostcard.Name=="Signed Postcard"){
  sayinv ("I've signed it with Bloodbeard's initials.");
}

Presumably because when translated iPostcard.Name is not reading as "Signed Postcard"? I've replaced it with this bit of script and sent it to the Spanish translator/tester:

Code: ags

if (iPostcard.Name=="Signed Postcard"||iPostcard.Name=="Postal Firmada"){
  sayinv ("I've signed it with Bloodbeard's initials.");
}

But I was wondering if this issues was known about, or understood better by anyone?

[Government's Listening Exercise on NHS Reform]

Hello British AGSers!

(Relax, foreign AGSers, this doesn't concern you.)

Having discovered in this thread that these boards are swarming with beard-hugging tree-wearing socialists I'm asking you to respond to the:

Government's Listening Exercise on NHS Reform

It asks delightfully leading questions like "What else can be done to make patient choice a reality?", assuming that we believe that the introduction of free-market competition to the NHS spells anything other than disaster.

I am asking all the Brits I know to respond with a talking-loudly-and-crossly exercise, and that includes YOU (unless it doesn't).

- Ali

Hi,

I'm compiling Nelly Cootalot in AGS 3.2.1, and I've noticed a bug which I don't think used to occur in the old version of the game.

If the mouse is over a character/object/hotspot at the point when the game goes back to the dialogue options, the @overhotspot@ GUI appears, and then stays on the screen. Weirdly, it disappears if I move the mouse over the menu buttons, though I can't see any reason for that in the script.

I can switch the @overhotspot@ GUI off when the dialogue GUI is visible in rep_execute_always, but I can't think of a reliable way of switching it back on when the dialogue ends. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

- Ali

Apart from the stylistic incongruities between the two games, a tester has told me that an updated version of Nelly Cootalot using DX9 doesn't seem to work if The White Chamber is installed. Apparently winsetup.exe will not run if TWC is installed. When it's uninstalled, winsetup.exe works, but if TWC is reinstalled winsetup.exe stops working again.

(Please note that this is a beta version of Nelly Cootalot v1.6, not the currently available v1.5 which does not conflict with TWC).

The report I got is this:

I just removed "The White Chamber" from my computer (it runs under Wintermute engine) and Nelly 1.6 winsetup.exe works fine... so strange.

I just install again "The White Chamber" and the error come to life again! I attach to you the win7 error message. It's in spanish, but the sentence is:

"Some game's essential files can't be loaded. Reinstall the game and try again please."

The more strange thing is that the error's icon is from "The white chamber". So, I execute Nelly's winsetup.exe and the error come up with an icon from "The white chamber"... crazy world!

So the error appears to come from the white chamber, even though Nelly's setup is being loaded...?!

I'm going to download TWC as soon as I can to try and replicate the error, but perhaps you guys know of a possible explanation?

Thanks,

Al.

Nelly Cootalot has almost been translated into Spanish. To achieve this, I had to switch to a true-type font. I also went through and upgraded the game to DX9, adding anti-aliased edges for the character sprites.

However I just got a complaint from the translator that the font is hard to read against light backdrops:



This was the clearest font I tested, but the outline is very faint. Is there any way to embolden it? Apart from downgrading to 16 bit colour!

Hi guys, I know there are a few people around with web experience and I'm stuck on this issue.

I have a reasonably large graphic I want to use as a link, and when the mouse hovers over it I want an element of it to change to a different graphic (like status text when hovering over a hotspot in an adventure game).

My problem is I can't find a way to do this without replacing the entire jpg with another jpg in the CSS, which seems inefficient. I want to find a way of making the browser treat two images as one link, changing one of the images when the mouse hovers over either of them. I also want to avoid javascript because this is the front page of the site and I don't want it to be blocked the first time it loads.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Hello,

I am working on my custom dialogue module, which previously did not use AGS's dialog scripts to allow for a custom speech functon. I now want to be able to use the built-in scripts to make things like translation / voices easier to add at a later date.

My problem is that there doesn't seem to be a function for running a dialogue option (the equivalent of clicking on it) in the script. Is there anything you can suggest?

Alternatively, is there a way of getting AGS to wait before drawing the custom dialogue window to allow me to fade in a backdrop and stop allow the smooth scrolling to stop? Because the built in custom dialogue system runs on the non-blocking thread I can't make this work.

[A Decemberween Mackrel]

Just in case there are still any other die-hard fans of Homestar Runner here in Free County AGS, I thought it worth posting the Brothers Chaps second cartoon this year:

A Decemberween Mackrel

Most of the threads I found speculating about it's death were followed by people saying, "Who still goes there, what is this 2004?" or shouting, "How dare they betray their fans, they should be ashamed!" but I don't care. I love it, and I loved SBCG4AP.

Hopefully this will make your Decemberweens go with a little more... Hot Pooey.

Hi!

Naturally, the cake was a lie. This just a wee question for Photoshop users.

I've recently moved to a newer version of Photoshop and I'm seeing big change in dark tones when exporting a file as a PNG. Images created on the old version look very milky unless I select 'Proof Setup: Monitor RGB' whereupon they look more like they did before. It doesn't seem right to work on an image with 'Proof Colors' selected, though.

Here is a screenshot of an image in Photoshop (left) compared to Irfanview.


Any suggestions on what settings or color profiles I should be using?

Thanks
- Al

Hi CJ,

I got very close to solving this problem, but now I've managed to cause a crash in my game which occurs every time I try to run it. I've tried commenting out recent changes, but it hasn't helped. 

The message is:

An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0043FBE7 ; program pointer is +379, ACI version 3.12.1074, gtags (0,0)

Any suggestions? Thanks for your time,

Ali.

[UPDATE:]

It was pointed out in the thread for my Smooth Scrolling and Simple Parallax module that it would be better if the screen only started to scroll when the player was near the edge of the screen.

The way scrolling worked in lucasarts classics was quite elegant. When the player moves near one edge of the screen, the viewport pans to bring them into the centre. I've found a way of making my script (which is really Steve McCrea's) do that, the WIP script is below.

The trouble is when the player suddenly changes to walk in the opposite direction. Currently the screen continues to scroll until it reaches a point the player left when they changed direction. Instead, I need to make the screen come to stop quickly but smoothly even if the player is still near the edge of the screen.

If any of you clever scripting types can see the solution, I'd be grateful for a hint!

UPDATE:

Well, I have it working. To detect which direction the player is moving in I'm checking the loops.

I think this is a clumsy solution, because it could be fooled if the character was moving but locked to a particular view. Is there a foolproof way of finding out which way a character is moving?

It seems the Radiohead singer posed as a member of the press to gain access to the Cophenhagen climate talks. He talks about them with a lucidity that is rare in musicians talking about important issues. There's a short interview with him on the BBC website, and I thought some people around here might be interested:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8419641.stm

What's worrying is, he says, "you've just got to try to be positive". When Radiohead's message is "be positive", the situation must be pretty dire!

I just read that the 'indie' version of Unity, which previously cost $200, is now available as freeware. It can build games for PC, Mac and the Web, and the graphics in the demo look quite pretty.

http://unity3d.com/unity/download/

It doesn't seem to have a built in text parser, but you can't have everything.

Hi,

I recently imported the tech demo of Nelly II into AGS 3.1 and the GUIs no longer fade in and out correctly. They appear to 'flash' because 100% transparency is rendered as solid white which fades away to reveal the GUI. This happens where the GUIs have alpha channels and where they do not.

The same thing occured when I replaced my code with the new Tween module. I couldn't find this problem when searching, I'd be grateful for any help.

- Ali

[Mental Repairs, Inc]

I just had a lot of fun playing a short freeware Wintermute game called Mental Repairs, Inc, made by Eshaktaar who created Murder In A Wheel with AGS. Turncoat though he may be, I thought I would recommend the game to anyone like me who missed it when it was released.

The game's puzzles are inventive, the script is witty and the graphical style is very polished. It can be downloaded from the developer's website.

I'm sorry if this is old news. If it is, please let me know if you've discovered any gems recently.

- Ali