Topics

I wanted to see if I could make a character animate when turning on the spot. I noticed that larger pre-rendered 3D characters looked a little jerky when rotating through 8 directions. I've cobbled together a little script that allows them to animate while rotating - so they could rotate smoothly or step round in a circle realistically.

You can download the game files here (4.09mb):

http://themonkeyhut.tripod.com/Animated_Rotation.html

I will probably replace the on-mouse-click script with a animated turning function that could be called from any script.

The script doesn't work perfectly at the moment. It seems to me that the regular walking function doesn't use diagonal loops, so when he walks diagonally the character snaps into either north, south east or west.

I was wondering if you guys could help me work out a way of specifying what loop to play while the character is walking, so this would work more smoothly. I also wanted suggestions on how to streamline and improve my scripting, because I know nothing about this sort of thing.

I'd apprecate any feedback, including whether this would be at all useful to anyone.

Some people have reported a crash when running my game on the Linux AGS engine. The error report is here:

Code: ags

scott@trousersnake:~/Desktop/nelly$ ./ags Nelly\ Cootalot.exe 
Adventure Creator v2.72 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Chris Jones
ACI version 2.72.920
CD-ROM Audio support enabled.
Pentium Pro CPU detected.
Checking sound inits.
An internal error has occured. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, contact Chris Jones.
(ACI version 2.72.920)

Error: run_rep_exec: error -6 (Error: Floating point divide by zero
in Global script (line 468)
) running function 'repeatedly_execute_always'
scott@trousersnake:~/Desktop/nelly$

The offending line of script is this:

Code: ags

float timeStep = 10.0/IntToFloat(GetGameSpeed());

Which works fine on the Windows version. I wondered if there's a problem with GetGameSpeed on the Linux Engine that would result in a divide-by-zero problem.

I'd appreciate any help people could offer on this, I don't know anything about the Linux AGS Engine.

[NELLY COOTALOT: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD]

NELLY COOTALOT: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD

Wishlist on Steam

Plot:
Nelly Cootalot, fearsome pirate and lover of tiny and adorable creatures, is charged by the spirit of a dead buccaneer to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a fleet of birds known as spoonbeaks. Her adventure will bring her face to face with the nefarious Baron Widebeard as she uncovers corruption and wanton punning in the Barony of Meeth.

Background:
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! was originally released hundreds of years ago in 2007. The game started out as a birthday present for my girlfriend and got wildly out of hand. In 2016, I made another Nelly game called Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet. This HD remastering brings the original game back to life, with a streamlined interface, a homemade voice over and loads more pixels.

Screenshots:




Remastered Specs:

• Remastered 1920 x 1080 HD graphics
• Extremely cheap voice acting (in English)
• Windows / Mac OS / Linux
• English, German, French, Spanish & Polish (text only)
• Streamlined point & click interface
• Bad jokes replaced with good jokes (I wish)

Trailer:

Opportunities to:

• Rescue endangered and unusually named wildfowl.
• Acquire morally dubious items on behalf of minor aristocrats.
• Intercept the private correspondances of a daredevil pilot.
• Come to the aid of downtrodden supernatural beings.
• Be confused by Nelly's County Durham colloquialisms.
• Borrow facial hair from long-dead pirates.
• Wantonly misuse the word 'borrow'.

AGS Awards:
Best Game Created with AGS 2007
Best Gameplay 2007
Best Dialogue Writing 2007
Best Player Character 2007
Best Character Art 2007

Music:
By Mark "m0ds" Lovegrove.

Translation:
Polish Translation: Krzysztof 'Elum' PaŠ,ka.
German Translation: Marcel Weyers with Tante Tabata, Kat Wallisch and Björn Ludwig.
French Translation: Hervé Appriou (Surdy), Mathieu Bergounioux (Monsieur OUXX) and Marc Denizot
Spanish Translation: Ernesto and Ana of Kawagames.

Walkthrough:
A walkthrough is available at gamesolutions HERE.

Thanks to Applications Systems Heidelberg, the Beta Testers, Translators and all the other people who helped make this game.

Download old version:
Nelly Cootalot v1.8 (24mb)

This is a problem I've had for a while: from time to time characters' dialogue appears in the wrong place. I'm using Lucas Arts style speech, and instead of appearing above characters' heads, the odd line will appear in the middle of the sprite. This happens more often if the character is near the edge of the screen and less often if I make the speech width wider, but it does still happen. I must stress that this only happens occasionally, not with every line.

I'm using a custom SCI font I made using Radiant Font edit. Could it be that my font has dimensions that AGS doesn't like? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm using Ogg Vorbis sounds for my game, but I have a wierd problem. At one point in my game there's a 'BANG' sound effect. Instead of playing properly it plays 'B-B-B-B-B-B-B...' and won't stop until I quit the game. What's weird is, that the same sound plays properly when I play it in a different room script. there are ambient sounds also playing in both rooms.

I've got around the problem by making that sound a .WAV instead of an .OGG, but I was wondering if there might be a better solution. Sorry if I haven't given enough information, audio stuff's not really my bag.

This could be a beginners problem I'm not sure. I've found a work-around bit I thought I'd mention the problem all the same.

I have a character animation that was made up of two loops, with the "play the next loop to make one long animation" option checked.

The character is singing in the background, so every-so often I create a textual overlay and cause him to animate. (I know I could have used Idle Animations and SayBackground, but they would cause problems with other parts of my game). I want him to stop animating smoothly so I used this line:

while (cT.frame!=0) Wait(1);

before I unlocked his view.

This works when the animation is only one loop long, but not when it's two. The animation terminates on the wrong frame when the animation is made up of two loops. I tried changing the line to this:

while (cT.loop=0&&cT.frame!=0) Wait(1);

Which I thought would solve the problem, but it stayed the same.

As I say, I solved the problem by making the animation shorter, but I'd like to know what I was doing wrong.

EDIT: Thank you sir!

This isn't game related, so I hope it's okay to post it here. I'd really like some feedback on this sketch. It's supposed to be quite loose and I know it's pretty sloppy. What I'd most appreciate would be people's thoughts on how the image strikes them in terms of environment/period and character.

I've just finished playing 'Dreamfall'. It was extremely enjoyable and I was very involved with the characters and plot. It was, however, the easiest game I've ever played by a long way. I've never completed such a lengthy game in such a short space of time.

For all but a few puzzles, the solution is simply obvious. For many, you're explicitly told what you need to do. I can think of only two instances of not knowing exactly what to do to solve my current predicament.

Most unusually, during the middle portion of the game I felt I was simply stringing together a series of (quite entertaining) cutscenes. There's a sequence which lasts about 30 minutes where all the player has to do is move from room to room watching cutscenes. Plus you're usually following someone, so there's no danger of you not going to the right place!

I'd be interested to know how other people feel about this game's ressurection of 'interactive movie' experience.

[Topic:]

Topic: Pets

Create a pet that could belong to a familiar character. The character can be from a game, a film, a book or whatever you want.

The pet doesn't have to be an animal but it does have to be your invention - don't draw Harry Potter's owl, draw Sherlock Holmes's badger.

Max Size: 100x100
Colours: 20

[backing up your Uru saved game is something you should do from the outset]

I thought this worth mentioning:

Uru's automatic save games are a little dodgy - I just lost 3 days gaming and I've now heard of people losing much more. My player character simply disappeared without explanation. I've managed to recover about half of my progress, but it is disheartening in a game I was really enjoying.

I REALLY wouldn't want to put anyone off playing the game, I just want to say that backing up your Uru saved game is something you should do from the outset.

I'm not sure how much discussion can be had here. I made this topic because I wish I'd read something like this before I started playing Uru. I know the Myst games aren't hugely popular on these boards, but I thought I might just be able to save someone hassle.

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in beginners, but I'll ask anyway.

I define and export overlay pointer (bellOverlay) at the start of my main script and import it in the global header.
I've scripted an object interaction which creates the overlay and removes it, and that works fine. It's for a ringing bell. I then shifted the code to a dialog request, and that still worked.

The problem is that I need to have the overlay appear during a dialogue and stay on screen for a period of time after, so the bell stays ringing while control returns to the player.

I added a timer and shifted this line:

if (bellOverlay.Valid==1) bellOverlay.Remove ();

from the end of my dialog-request to repeatedly-execute like this:

if (bellTimer==0){
if (bellOverlay.Valid==1) bellOverlay.Remove ();
//stop the bell animation
}

This will compile but the game crashes because of a 'null pointer' reference when I enter the room. I feel I must have failed to import the pointer properly, but I can't see how. I'd be thankful for any help.

-Ali

[Update 02/11]

I keep hearing people describe the Sphinx project as 'dead', but I think it's too good an idea not to contribute to.

Here's a backdrop for the first location in the game, a road near a train station. It's been drawn within the style guide set out by Big Brother:
http://www.americangirlscouts.org/snarkywiki/index.php/Style_Guide. But I find it particularly difficult to draw bushes that fit the style. The character needs to hide behind a bush so I can't cheat and get rid of them. There are many unfinished areas, particularly the rocks on the horizon.



I'd appreciate any feedback.

Update 02/11

Heliopolis Skyline:


Updated Road:


Railway Platform (WIP):


Updated Railway Platform:

*Feedback wanted on this one particularly - see last post*

Hi guys, I know many people ask this sort of thing regularly, but I don't now much about web hosting / getting domain names and I could use a little advice.

I'm based in the UK and need a small amount of space, and three .co.uk domains. The idea is that each domain refers to different projects, but they all link to pages within one space.

What I'm uncertain about is how much that would cost (I hope cheap-ish) and how much bandwidth I'd need. To begin in with, the pages would be very simple, with a few small images. At a later date I might want to stream video, or allow people to download video/audio clips. I'm not certain what kind of options I'd need to allow that.

I really don't know anything about this sort of thing. I'd appreciate any information / suggestions you might be able to make.

[Theme: The Great Exhibition]

Theme: The Great Exhibition
Enties should be a character, an object or an inventory item that might have been found at The Great Exhibition of 1851: Fine ladies, Victorian inventions, ragamuffin pickpockets, etc. Take your inspiration from any aspect of the 19th century, an age of upright gentlemen, workhouses, spiritualism and industry.

Guidelines:
Maximum 150x150 pixels, minimum 30x30.
No colour limit, but feel free to apply your own.
Historical accuracy of little-to-no importance.

I'm sure I must have done something stupid or missed something obvious, but have some variables that aren't behaving.

I can change the variable from 0 to 1 in one room. When I enter any other room it's at 0 again. There is no code anywhere that changes the variable to 0. While I'm still in the room it also shows up as 0 on the status line (which is updated in the global repeatedly_execute) while the character says that it's 1.

This happened with an int variable, so I changed to a bool and it worked. Now I've made a couple more bool varaibles and they're behaving the same way.

I have around 100 Strings, ints and bools in all, have I hit some kind of limit?

I'd appreciate any help you could offer!

[Code]

Hello everyone,

I've been struggling with this for a few days now and I can't get my head around it. I want to script a Code Cracker that works in the following way. A GUI label called Code displays a message encoded using a subsitution cypher (A=B, C=Q or whatever). Below, 26 GUI buttons with ID numbers 1-26 display the letters A-Z. I the player to be able to re-arrange the buttons, and have the new alphabet they create re-work the lettering in the Code label.

I've created two character arrays, Alphabet1[27] and [/b]Alphabet2[27][/b] for storing old and new versions of the button alphabet in slots 1-26.

I've managed to scipt a button-swapping script, but only using outdated code. I've added strings First and Second to store the labels of the clicked buttons and integers FirstID and SecondID to store the ID.

My idea was to alter the array Alphabet2 by replacing the character at FirstID with the first character the string Second and vice versa. Then the script should go through the GUI label checking each letter based on Alphabet1 and changing it to the corresponding character in Alphabet2. Afterwards, Alphabet 1 has its characters replaced by Alphabet2.

This doesn't work properly and I'm too dim to work out why. Is there perhaps a better way of approaching this. I'd be grateful for any input.

For reference, here is an example of the on-click code for the A button.

Code: ags

if (FirstID==0){ //If is the first button clicked store its ID, loc & text in the appropriate variables
Ã,  FirstID=A.ID;
Ã,  FirstXpos=A.X;
Ã,  First=A.Text;
}
else if (FirstID!=0){ //If is the second button clicked store its ID, loc & text in the appropriate variables
Ã,  if (FirstID!=SecondID){
Ã,  SecondID=A.ID;
Ã,  SecondXpos=A.X;
Ã,  Second=A.Text;
Ã,  SetGUIObjectPosition (0, FirstID, SecondXpos, A.Y);
Ã,  SetGUIObjectPosition (0, SecondID, FirstXpos, A.Y);//Swap the first and second button positions
Ã,  Display ("Clicked %c then %c",Ã,  First.Chars[0],Ã,  Second.Chars[0]);
Ã,  Alphabet2[FirstID]=Second.Chars[0];
Ã,  Alphabet2[SecondID]=First.Chars[0];//Swap the 2 letters in the Alphabet character array
Ã,  Display ("Replace %c with %c.",Ã,  Alphabet2[FirstID],Ã,  Alphabet2[SecondID]);
Ã,  FirstID=0;
Ã,  SecondID=0;
Ã,  CodeA=Code.Text;// Code is a GUI Label containing a string whose letters I want to alter
Ã,  while (StringPos<(CodeA.Length-1)){//Go through every letter in the string replacing it with
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[1])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[1]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[2])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[2]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[3])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[3]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[4])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[4]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[5])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[5]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[6])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[6]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[7])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[7]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[8])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[8]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[9])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[9]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[10])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[10]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[11])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[11]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[12])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[12]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[13])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[13]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[14])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[14]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[15])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[15]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[16])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[16]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[17])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[17]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[18])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[18]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[19])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[19]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[20])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[20]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[21])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[21]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[22])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[22]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[23])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[23]);
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[24])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[24]); 
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[25])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[25]); 
Ã,  Ã,  if (CodeA.Chars[StringPos]==Alphabet1[26])Code.Text=CodeA.ReplaceCharAt(StringPos, Alphabet2[26]);Ã,  Ã,  Ã, 
Ã,  Ã,  StringPos=StringPos+1;
Ã,  Ã,  CodeA=Code.Text;
}
StringPos=0;

Alphabet1[1]=Alphabet2[1];
Alphabet1[2]=Alphabet2[2];
Alphabet1[3]=Alphabet2[3];
Alphabet1[4]=Alphabet2[4];
Alphabet1[5]=Alphabet2[5];
Alphabet1[6]=Alphabet2[6];
Alphabet1[7]=Alphabet2[7];
Alphabet1[8]=Alphabet2[8];
Alphabet1[9]=Alphabet2[9];
Alphabet1[10]=Alphabet2[10];
Alphabet1[11]=Alphabet2[11];
Alphabet1[12]=Alphabet2[12];
Alphabet1[13]=Alphabet2[13];
Alphabet1[14]=Alphabet2[14];
Alphabet1[15]=Alphabet2[15];
Alphabet1[16]=Alphabet2[16];
Alphabet1[17]=Alphabet2[17];
Alphabet1[18]=Alphabet2[18];
Alphabet1[19]=Alphabet2[19];
Alphabet1[20]=Alphabet2[20];
Alphabet1[21]=Alphabet2[21];
Alphabet1[22]=Alphabet2[22];
Alphabet1[23]=Alphabet2[23];
Alphabet1[24]=Alphabet2[24];
Alphabet1[25]=Alphabet2[25];
Alphabet1[26]=Alphabet2[26];
}
else if (FirstID!=SecondID){
Ã,  FirstID=0;
Ã,  SecondID=0;
}
}

As I say, I don't really know what I'm doing and I'd appreciate any thoughts!

Thanks,

Ali.

All the recent debate threads about religion and politics got me thinking, 'Who should play cartoon characters if they were in live action films?"

A profound philosophical inquiry, I'm sure you'll agree. So far all I've come up with is:

Homestar Runner: Zach Braff (JD from Scrubs)
Strongbad: Jack Black
Bubs: Cedric the Entertainer

I'd like here who you guys think would to a good job of bringing cartoon and adventure game characters to life.

I love the new feature in 2.72 that allows you to alter the colour of dialogue topics which have been said. I've noticed however, that it looks a bit odd when my 'Goodbye' topics change colour after they've been said once. It would be good if it was possible to alter a dialogue topic's 'said' state to keep particular topics 'unsaid'. This would be useful for 'Goodbye' and 'Remind me of...' topics.

This 'Goodbye' issue led me to realise that it doesn't seem to be possible to end a dialogue except from within a dialogue topic. It would be very handy if it was possible to call the 'Goodbye' topic by clicking outside of the dialog GUI or right-clicking.

I couldn't find specific references to ideas like these in the tracker. Would they be remotely feasable/useful?

[Gone With the Wind]

"As God As My Witness..." is something I hear a lot in U.S. television and films, but it makes no sense.

It has long baffled me that an incoherent phrase could be so popular simply because it sounds like it means something. As far as I could tell the most famous example of it is the end of Gone With the Wind but that didn't help explain it.

I though that the phrase must have originally been "With God as My Witness", but in the film Elizabeth a character insists that he is telling the truth "As God is my Witness".

That's a far more powerful statement. "With God as my Witness" just means God can see you. "As God is my Witness" means that the statement you make is true to the same extent that God is your witness.

Sorry for this boresome post, perhaps everyone already new this, or think the origins of odd phrases is dull.

I'd be interested if anyone knows the origins of odd modes of expression. I can't see why Americans (again) are so keen on saying "I could care less" for "couldn't care less", or why we Brits frequently use "literally" when we mean "virtually".

Hello,

I have created exit hotspots that call 'Mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves()' before changing the cursor to the 'Exit' Cursor.

I call the CMI-style inventory by right-clicking, which works fine unless I right-click while over an exit hotspot. The inventory opens, I can pick up items, but as soon as I leave the GUI my cursor returns to the cursor it was before I went onto the exit hotspot and I lose the item.

Is there a way of erasing the game's memory of the saved cursor at the point of right-clicking?

Thanks!

-Ali.