Messages

I think examples of people quitting games because they don't know how to use verb-coins are probably proof? Some people hate single-click games, but no one has ever stopped playing one because they were confused.

Can we please stop ignoring that there is a difference between those hold-down-to-show and single-click verbcoins?

I acknowledged that you were right about that earlier in the thread. Nonetheless "verb-coin" as a category includes "traditional/bad verb-coin". I suspect that - as Cassiebsg says - the click-and-hold verb-coin was designed with hotspot-heavy rooms in mind.

Unless someone is going to disagree with the reasons Snarky listed, in which case, where is this proof of verbcoins causing people to dislike your game?

I think examples of people quitting games because they don't know how to use verb-coins are probably proof? Some people hate single-click games, but no one has ever stopped playing one because they were confused.

That's why when I wrote "That Damn Dog" I added a timer and if the player does not right click after some time has passed I show a message box with "Did you know? You can right click on stuff". No idea if that worked, though.

In the Fowl Fleet, you have to right click to solve the tutorial puzzle at the start. Players do it, and then never right click again, I'm sure of it. I wrote SO MANY lines that I'm sure at least 1 reviewer (who found the puzzles incomprehensible) never heard.

Click somewhere where no hotspot is? Just the same as with a single click interface. Click on a hotspot -> a verbcoin is opened/an action is performed directly vs. click somewhere else -> walk there. I don't see any difference here.

Good point!

For the record, eri0o and I moved to DMs, and then he modified the module himself to serve his needs. I didn't abandon him!

To create edges, rather than modify the module, I would have a dummy character pinned to the X and Y of the player as long as they are within the prescribed limits. If they leave the prescribed limits, the dummy stops following and the target character switches to the dummy. Maybe?

Edit: In fact, the target character could always be the dummy, no need to switch.

The Verbcoins in CMI and Full Throttle all required you to hold down the left mouse button for a period of time. If the coin appears instantly, how does left clicking to walk work?

So the “Windows” way of a verbcoin would be: A (fast) right-click opens the verb coin, which stays visible until the player either left-clicks on an option or moves the mouse off the verb-coin.

If this is the handling that a Windows user ”expects”, then long-left-clicking instead of right-clicking and dragging the mouse to the option instead of fast-left-clicking the option is quite counter-intuitive.

Maybe this is off-topic, but I think it's interesting. You're right, *except* lots of people probably never right click in Windows, or use a touch screen. I am resigned to thinking that single-click is the only option. The dev of Unforeseen Incidents insisted on single-click and I disagreed, but they were right. In the end we wrote two+ responses for every object, so if you do left and right click, you get the same experience.

People don't even understand a two-click interface any more. I swear some people played through The Fowl Fleet without right clicking on anything (even though it tells you how to do it), and then complained that the puzzles didn't make sense.

Kids today!

This is also, tragically, a good reason not to use the verbcoin. I've seen the exact same thing with Spoonbeaks Ahoy, even though there's a help button that tells you exactly what to do. I've taken the verb coin out for the HD remaster.

I remember enjoying this game, I hope you get another review!

[Kickstarter Campaign]

Double bump:

AdventureX will be returning to London on the 10th & 11th of November 2018. Yay! We have launched a Kickstarter Campaign to help AdventureX keep growing. Please share the campaign & support us if you can.

Back AdventureX 2018 on Kickstarter!

Applications for exhibitors / speakers / volunteers are now open:

• Exhibitor Application Form
• Speaker Application Form
• Volunteer Application Form

Applications close July 31st. We don't charge exhibitors to show off their games at AdventureX.

There biggest changes for 2018 are:

• We are running in partnership with the British Library, as part of International Games Week. This means we have a bigger venue, in a central London location.
• AdnventureX 2018 will be a ticketed event for the first time. But you can get significantly discounted tickets if you back the Kickstarter fast! For more info on this decision, please check out the 2018 announcement.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at AdventureX 2018!

Bump! The Kickstarter for AdventureX 2018 will launch at midday tomorrow. Keep an eye on our twitter feed and get in fast for early bird discounts on a weekend pass.

The announcement on the blog goes into detail about our new venue, and why we've decided to make the event ticketed this year.

Sorry, I forgot to mention the positioning! Yes, those are for foreground objects. There's nothing to stop you replacing that whole section with different mutlipliers to create incrementally different parallax layers. I'd be worried about having too many large objects in a room, in terms of performance. But these days, that's much less of an issue.

I haven't got any plans to add more layers, not least because it would break existing games that use the module. But if you want a more subtle effect, you can play round with the maths in this section:

Code: ags

if (PxObj[objectpass].GetProperty("PxPos")==7) {

      PxObj[objectpass].X=PxObjOriginX[objectpass]-FloatToInt(IntToFloat(viewx)*3.0); //Move the object in opposite direction to the screen scrolling, at 150% of the scrolling speed.

      PxObj[objectpass].Y=PxObjOriginY[objectpass]-FloatToInt(IntToFloat(viewy)*3.0); 
    
    }

Down to...

Code: ags

else if (PxObj[objectpass].GetProperty("PxPos")==1) {
      
      PxObj[objectpass].X=PxObjOriginX[objectpass]-FloatToInt(IntToFloat(viewx)/4.0); //Move the object in opposite direction to the screen scrolling, at a quarter of the speed of the scrolling.

      PxObj[objectpass].Y=PxObjOriginY[objectpass]-FloatToInt(IntToFloat(viewy)/4.0); 

So to make them move more subtly, you could change /4.0 to /16.0 for PxPos 1, and so on.

I probably should break those values out into floats, so you can change them from the script. I might do that in a future update, but for now I'm afraid it's up to you to experiment until you get a speed you like.

That is probably exactly what I'm doing. Crossfade is on. Good thinking!

But it's not very intuitive. It's far from obvious that you can't set a channel's volume if it's currently fading.

Yes, MusicVol.Value is 0 throughout.

If I do this:

Code: ags

playMusicContinuous (aMusic1ogg);
channelMusic.Volume = MusicVol.Value;
Display (String.Format ("MusicVol: %d", MusicVol.Value));
channelMusic.Volume = MusicVol.Value;

It mutes the music only after displaying "MusicVol: 0". Just like before, setting the volume only works when there's some kind of delay.

EDIT: I have given up on making sense of this, and am using Game.SetAudioTypeVolume(eAudioTypeMusic, MusicVol.Value, eVolExistingAndFuture) instead. It would be very helpful in the help document if SetMusicVolume redirected to this function instead of AudioChannel.Volume.

I'm playing music by calling a function called playMusicContinuous, which is supposed to check the level of the volume slider (MusicVol). Except it doesn't work. When I lower the slider to 0, the music cuts out, but when I enter the next room, it plays at normal volume.

In the GlobalScript I have:

Code: ags

function playMusicContinuous (AudioClip* clip){
  channelMusic = clip.PlayFrom(musicPos[cN.Room], eAudioPriorityNormal, eRepeat);
  channelMusic.Volume = MusicVol.Value;
}

In the room script I have:

Code: ags

// script for Room: Player enters screen (after fadein)
playMusicContinuous (aMusic1ogg);

The volume is not set correctly. This doesn't work either:

Code: ags

// script for Room: Player enters screen (after fadein)
playMusicContinuous (aMusic1ogg);
Wait(1);
channelMusic.Volume = MusicVol.Value;

But this DOES work after playing for a few seconds:

Code: ags

// script for Room: Player enters screen (after fadein)
playMusicContinuous (aMusic1ogg);
Wait(150);
channelMusic.Volume = MusicVol.Value;

Does that make sense to anyone?

Hi! The Kickstarter is coming very soon, so I was waiting for that to post here. But, basically, its happening.

Please could a mod edit subspark's comment in this module thread? It has links to the same domain and Chrome blocks it:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=33142.msg429592#msg429592

Edit: Thanks, Gilbert!

1600x900 isn't available from the drop-down when I select Direct Draw 5, but when I enter it into the .cfg file manually the same problem occurs. I've noticed that I can move the mouse cursor over the top of the black bar at the bottom, but not at the top.

It sounds like it is something to do with my graphics card (Nvidia 1060). But since that's the most common graphics card among steam users, I'd really love to get to the bottom of the problem. Please let me know if you have any thoughts!

The tag in the corner is from a Nvidia program I use for screen-capturing gameplay. It runs whenever I launch a game, and it doesn't interfere with any other games. Here's what the log says:

Adventure Game Studio v3.4 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 Chris Jones and 2011-2017 others
ACI version 3.4.0.16

Installing exception handler
Initializing allegro
Reading configuration
Looking for game data file
Game data file: d:/Users/ABK/Documents/Nelly Cootalot HD/AGS Project/Nelly HD/Compiled/Windows/Nelly HD.exe

Game data version: 47
Requested engine version: 3.4.0.16
Setting up window
Initializing TTF renderer
Initializing mouse: number of buttons reported is 8
Checking memory
Initializing speech vox
Speech sample file found and initialized.
Initializing audio vox
Audio vox found and initialized.
Initializing keyboard
Install timer
Initialize sound drivers
Trying digital driver ID: 'AXA ' (0x41584120), MIDI driver ID: 'Auto' (0xffffffff)
Installed digital driver ID: 'AXA ' (0x41584120), MIDI driver ID: 'W32M' (0x5733324d)
Install exit handler
Initialize path finder library
Load game data
Game data version: 47
Requested engine version: 3.4.0.16
Game GUI version: 118
Nelly Cootalot Spoonbeaks Ahoy
Checking for disk space
Initializing MOD/XM player
Initializing resolution settings
Game native resolution: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit)
Device display resolution: 1920 x 1080
Game settings: windowed = no, screen def: explicit, screen size: 1600 x 900, match device ratio: ignore, game scale: proportional
Built library path: d3d9.dll
Using graphics factory: D3D9
Created graphics driver: Direct3D 9
Supported gfx modes (32-bit):
   640x480;640x480;640x480;640x480;720x480;720x480;720x576;800x600;
   800x600;800x600;800x600;1024x768;1024x768;1024x768;1152x864;1176x664;
   1176x664;1176x664;1280x720;1280x720;1280x720;1280x768;1280x800;1280x960;
   1280x1024;1280x1024;1360x768;1366x768;1600x900;1600x900;1600x1024;1600x1024;
   1680x1050;1680x1050;1768x992;1768x992;1768x992;1920x1080;1920x1080;1920x1080;
   1920x1080;1920x1080;1920x1080;1440x900;
Supported gfx modes (24-bit): none
Requested gfx filter: Linear
Using gfx filter: Linear
Switching to graphics mode
Attempting to find nearest supported resolution for screen size 1600 x 900 (32-bit) fullscreen
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 1600 x 900 (32-bit) fullscreen; game frame: 1600 x 900
D3DGraphicsDriver: InitializeD3DState()
Succeeded. Using gfx mode 1600 x 900 (32-bit) fullscreen
   filter dest (0, 0, 1599, 899 : 1600 x 900), render dest (0, 0, 1599, 899 : 1600 x 900)
Preparing graphics mode screen
Initializing colour conversion
Mouse control: on, base: 0.833333, speed: 1.000000
Check for preload image
Initialize sprites
Set up screen
Initialize game settings
Cannot open translation: default.tra
Prepare to start game
Mouse confined: (0,0)-(1599,899) (1600x900)
Audio is processed on the main thread
Checking replay status
Engine initialization complete
Starting game
WARNING: Not all of the Direct3D resources have been disposed; ID3D ref count: 1
***** ENGINE HAS SHUTDOWN

Then native resolution is 1920x1080. When I Ctrl-V, it says it's running at 1600x900. When I Printscreen, I get a 1600x900 image:



But it doesn't display correctly. Needless to say, other games do run at 1600x900 correctly.