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I'm trying to solve the font issue (avoid using super-pixelated letters which make some people's eyes hurt) in my low-res game, and have experimented with importing some TFFs with the AA turned on in the settings.
Everything would be perfect if it wasn't for the fact that AGS lumps together some letter combinations and make them hard to read. The font type itself is standard Verdana which normally has a really smooth nice legibility. Why are the letters rendered so awkwardly in AGS, and can I tweak it somehow? Or how do people typically circumvent the low-res texts issue (if they do - if they find it an issue)?

http://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html

I guess I kind of managed to forget these abominations, but the more I think of it, the absurdity of it is coming back to me.
How could so many of the big titles get away with this level of ludicrousness? We spend so much time here trying to come up with good puzzles, and we give each other feedback and make damn sure to tell one another when our puzzles get too silly. Nobody here at AGS would get away with designing a puzzle like those on that list, yet the professional developers did it again and again.

Are they to blame for the - sometimes - bad reputation of the genre?

Or are we too hard on ourselves, demanding too much of a game element that most players would just accept for it is?

Do we tend to forget about all the silly puzzles we've faced, and remember only the good ones?

This topic has been moved to Adventure Related Talk & Chat.

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Okay. First of all, should I implement any of the features discussed here, this post would turn out a massive spoiler for my upcoming game. So if you want to avoid having what could be a key twist in the game plot entirely disclosed at this point, stop reading.

Spoiler

Basically, the idea is pretty simple. You all know how we've had dozens of threads and hundred of posts discussing how games treat player options - especially dialogue options - to alter the direction of the game, potentially leading to different paths/endings.

Normally when we discuss this, we agree that most games execute this poorly, and that the various choices often tend to result in the same outcome, making the whole liberty of choice concept a mere chimera.

I've got an idea for my game that could possibly be perceived as rather controversial, and since it could be a deal-breaker to some people, I want to talk about it here. At one point, well into the game, the protagonist will be asked a question concerning his background. The player will choose an option, believing that one is true, and the other false, and that he has possibly failed to notice which one is which. What the player doesn't know is that this option in fact determines his background.

On another occasion, a side character will ask what the protagonist thought of their last encounter (which took place long before the beginning of the game). The player can now choose to pick options that will suggest that they had a romantic affair (among others). More options detailing the protagonist's thoughts and reactions on this affair can be chosen subsequently. All these responses will not only describe what the player thinks happened, but they will help shape what actually happened. By now, the player should realize that this is the case, and will understand that the blankness of the main character is intentional - not only is his neutral persona reflecting the idiosyncrasies of other characters, but he's actually - in part - being written during the course of the game.

Don't confuse this with RPG-stories, where a brand new character enters a world and may have their personal background partly made up by the player. In such scenarios, the personal background is just a decoration - what happened before the start of the game is not relevant to the game plot. In my scenario, the background events mentioned bear great significance to the plot - not necessarily in how the game is played (there won't be a myriad of paths/endings) but how the story elements will be read and perceived.

The part that may be confusing is that the player has no knowledge or insight in the scenarios at hand, so the choices will be made rather blindly, prompted by gut feeling.

Example: A female character approaches the protagonist and asks him why he left her (at one point in the past). The player can then choose to have the protagonist say "Because I was afraid" or "because I didn't like you", or even "I didn't leave you, you left me, remember?". The player must make this decision without any information or context, and the chosen response, whichever it is, will be the truth.

Has this been done before (it may have been done to death already, I don't play many games and could easily have missed it), and more importantly, should it be done? Will it break some sort of fourth wall? Will it just annoy players to learn that the background story isn't set in stone when the game begins?

Thoughts?

[close]

Okay, I might have been sitting for too long with AGS today, but I can't wrap my head around this issue.

I have a sound playing in one room. I'm using a global variable audio channel (bells) to play the clip in.
In the next room, I want the volume to go down, so I've got this:

if (bells.IsPlaying == true){
    bells.Volume = 50;
}

Now, this works perfectly if the bells clip is playing, but if it isn't, AGS gives me a null pointer referenced error and shuts down. I can't for my life see why. If the bells sound isn't playing, surely it would just return false?

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This topic has been moved to The Rumpus Room.

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Alright, since I decided to dual-announce it in my GiP-thread, I'm locking this thread.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46388.msg631821#new

Basically I would like to use something like

Code: ags

if (Object.GetAtScreenXY (and here insert a range of x coordinates, and then a range of y coordinates, which will constitute an area) != null){
}

I've been scripting all day and getting a bit disoriented, so this could probably be rather easy. Alternatively, I could draw regions or hotspots and check whether any objects has ended up on top of them.

[Divide your games into chapters]

Hallo, my name ist Andail!¹

I've got many a crappy game under my belt, so I thought it was high time to make something less crappy. As some of you may or may not know (or not care about), I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, which is a nice way of saying I don't excel at anything. But I've always been dependant on having a creative project to work on, be it music, art or writing, or building my own replica of a Mongol horsebow. Yeah I'm just all over the place.

This summer my significantly better half is away in Africa, so I have only myself to care about. High five! (Just kidding, honeybird.) So I activated warp drive and started producing.

Here are some advice I've compiled during my journey so far. Don't you just hate when people use the word "journey" figuratively like that? I sure do.
Before we start, let's make clear that these tips are for those of you who tend to get stuck and abandon your projects, not for people like Ben who spit out games like some kind of game-spitting Pez toy.

1. Divide your games into chapters. Not real chapters, idiot, imaginary! Of course, if it's meant to have real chapters, then fine. But even those chapters may need to be split up further. Point is, make sure you've got a limited amount of game-time to focus on at any given time. Then decide how much you will spend on that imaginary (or real) chapter. This is also a great way to test if you can meet your deadline.

Make the game playable, and beatable, up until that point. Just focus on getting all the puzzles solvable, the jokes enjoyable and the walkable areas walkable. Most graphics can be placeholders, except that the backgrounds should be at least so finished you won't have to draw new masks for the finished versions. Then when this chapter is playable, you can go back and touch up the graphics and add hot-spot responses and that kind of crap. This way you will always have a clear, tangiable goal in sight.
Without these mental milestones, you will inevitably feel like you're lost in a big thick jungle of tasks and problems, with no light in sight.

2. Set up a conveyor-belt kind of production, where you work on several things parallel. For instance, my process of making backgrounds starts with modelling them very crudely in a 3D-program, to get perspective and stuff right (and to experiment with angles and view-points etc). Then I paint them over in PS using my tablet, with rather big, transparent brushes. Lastly I re-size them to the proper size (320x240 in my case) and start touching up the details with tiny brushes.

However, I usually start up three or four models at the same time in the 3D-program and prepare them side by side. Then during the next phase, I work on all of them parallel. And then I touch them up, side by side, again. The advantages of this are:
* You work more efficiently if you're already in the zone, so to speak. The software is started up, you're quick with the controls, you have the short-keys fresh in your mind, the custom-brushes imported, the page with textures that you're gonna steal opened, etc.
* The artwork will be more consistent. If you create every background from scratch, one week apart, chances are they'll differ unpleasantly in style.
* You won't get bored or stuck as easily. Tired of drawing that old barn? Just jump to the interior-shot of the harpoon factory!

3. Don't over-plan your game. This goes especially for you amateurs out there. Yes, you! J/K. Design documents and mind maps are nifty and pretty to look at, but they kind of require you to hatch all those great ideas one after one in a steady stream of ideas. Designing puzzles demand a ridiculous amount of lateral thinking, and sometimes you just have to rely on serendipity. Sometimes heaven just gives you the perfect idea as a little token of goodwill, but that never happens while you're staring at an empty design document and so desperately need it; it happens when you're doing something else, like pushing pixels on that wondrous unicorn, or taking a shower. That's why whole areas of your design document must be blank, to accommodate for these sudden flashes of inspiration.

Secondly, imagine you have that huge, highly polished design document in front of you, all done. It's all there in ink, twentyeight pages of ingenious dialogues, brilliant puzzle layouts and hotspot-descriptions so spot-on it's almost silly, in classy Garamond size 11 and even an index page. Now grab the mouse and decide where to put the very first pixel on the very first frame of the very first character walk cycle. Feel the angst building up inside? See the mountain ahead of you? Get it that from now on, all the creating is about realizing what you've already designed?

Better idea: Unless you're Dave Gilbert and your brain has the precision and discipline of a Korean military parade, just make a rough sketch of your game, then plan each chapter more in-depth as you go along. It'll be more fun, and you won't feel the immense burden of your own plans weighing you down.

4. Inspiration. This point has more to do with working creatively in general. "I'm not inspired today," I hear someone think, "I think I'll just play Skyrim for thirty hours and check my facebook account repeatedly." Young man! If you have decided to create something, waiting for the right inspiration is comparable to a postman waiting for the right wind to deliver all the letters for him. A seventy-year-old millionaire living in Provence might get away with waiting for inspiration; the rest of us just work.

If you have set aside some days to work on your project -- or like me, an entire summer -- make sure to establish routines, or your brain will turn into slush. I never turn on the computer first thing I do in the morning. I have to properly "start" the day first; I make the bed, open the blinds, eat a proper breakfast, I go to the gym and work out. Then at noon I return to the compputer with a cup of coffee and I enter my zone.

5. Go away from the computer. This is actually a continuation of point 4, but point 4 was getting lengthy. Go out and get impressions! Most of my ideas come when I go for walks, or drink coffee in cafes and just look at people.

Ideas aren't Urukhais, you can't just pull one out of a big hatching pod whenever you need it. Ideas are the result of mixing random new input with old thoughts. Both poets and artists sometimes just throw words or paint in a big jumbled mess and then start trying to discern shapes and patterns, and from this awesome new things are created.

6. Finish something! Yes, you have sixteen awesome projects going on, all with mind-blowing animations and puzzles so clever they're almost sentient, but none of them are finished, and thus they are as useful as an umbrella made of magnesium. Meanwhile, your untalented hack of a baby-brother has released his first game "The revenge of the return of the light sabre", consisting of four rooms and a dozen frames worth of animations, but his game is fully playable, and people can enjoy it, and people pat him on his shoulder and tell him to keep it up, and he's learned a ton now, and he's really happy and goes on to make a sequel right away, "The next revenge of the..." yeah you get the picture.

Finishing songs means you can put them on Myspace and let people hear them. Finishing paintings means you can put them on Deviant art and let people behold them. Finishing stories mean you can have a collection of finished stories with your name on them. And that is awesome.

Now feel free to share with us your best advice!
G'day.

¹: Mods' impression of me.

For my project I've started to do sprite animations proper "rotoscope" style, where I record short clips of people doing stuff, and then look at keyframes for references when drawing animations.
It's amazing how bad you are at trying to guess what motions look like, compared to when you have a true motion to look at.

[imgzoom]http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/ordbending.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/frejabendingbowl.gif[/imgzoom]

I haven't been too meticulous with shades and details (I'm still doing everything by myself, and have to consider the time frame), but instead I try to get the overall motion look ok.
Feel free to offer c&c

Edit. Ok I saw that I chopped off her feet

Ok, so we were a group of people and someone told a riddle that went something like this:

A man walks up a hill one day, following a trekking route. He begins at the foot of the hill at 7 am and reaches the top at 7 pm. The next day, he descends the hill, walking the exact same route, beginning at 7 am and finishing at 7 pm.
The route is naturally uneven, with steep, slow parts and more level, fast parts.

While descending the hill, will there be a point, anywhere, at any time, where he can say "Exactly at this time yesterday, I was here"?
In other words - is there sure to be a point that he reaches the same time both days?

I see myself as moderately intelligent - I did take some math courses in university, with probability and shit, but am far from a logical mastermind - but I had no problems whatsoever understanding this riddle, saying "yeah of course." However, almost nobody there, and almost nobody I've spoken about the riddle with, could see this solution.

Now, you guys are genuinely clever, so I'm turning to you. Is this riddle really that hard? Isn't the answer quite obvious - yes, there must exist such a point, regardless of his pace, and regardless of the terrain?

My game The Samaritan Paradox is officially in production.

A writer has died. His daughter seeks the help of you, Ord Salamon, to find his secret last novel. During the search, questions will emerge. Did her father really kill himself? What is the secret novel all about? What is going on on the island of Fardo?

I estimate that I've done roughly 10% of this game, all areas counted (except for music and voices, which I will probably pay someone to do).

The finished product will be for sale at a reasonable price in about a year from now.

For more info + updates, check my blog at
http://faravidinteractive.wordpress.com/

Ok, I constructed my own inventory window and everything is working splendidly, except for one tiny little thing - I want the item I have selected to be temporarily removed from the inventory window. Right now it remains in the window while being selected, so that it - among other things - can be used on itself.
I think this is the default way, and the way AGS games are typically designed (or?), but I think it would be neater the other way.

I have searched the forum and I've really tried to script my way around this, but I'm just stuck.
My idea is that I can call the
InventoryItem.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
(which I already use to set the active inventory, when the player selects it)
to use with
InventoryItem.Graphics
and make it go away, but I can't get it to work. It's probably much easier than I think. Or it's impossible.

What's people's opinions on Kickstart? Easy to use, does what it says, etc?

I want my next game to be a commercial release, and it would be nice with a budget to get stuff like music and voices. I've soon put together a playable demo, and then I'll be ready to start spreading the word. I've been entertaining the notion of using Kickstart.
Can anyone share their experiences with it?

(search function down, I think)
Ok, either me or this editor is slightly retarded.

I'm using Sierra's portrait style dialog system. However, I want less significant characters to speak with only a speech animation (i.e. no close up portrait).

According to the manual, I should be able to use something like this:

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute_always()
{
  if ((cVisitor.Speaking==true)&&!cVisitor.Animating)
  {
    cVisitor.Animate (1, 4, eRepeat, eNoBlock);
  }
}

Never mind all the options with lockview or checking the loops or whatnot; I've tried it all - nothing happens.
I've controlled the function with other commands, and it's working pretty sporadically, I must say. If set the cEgo to move while he's talking (just to check if the code works), he waits until the line is said, even though I'm using noBlock and the repeatedly_execute_always() should work during blocking stuff.

So, is this function repeatedly_execute_always() working properly or am I stupid?

Obviously I can't use the built-in speech view since that would place the animation in the top corner, where the portrait should have been.

How can you create custom talking animations if not like this? Or more precisely, how do games solve the problem of giving some characters portraits and other speech animations?

I'm going slightly mad.

Aloha!
I've painted many a picture in me days, but pixelation has never been my forte.
However, my new project will be in low-res, so I'm pretty much forced to pick up that trade now.

Here's one version of the main character:



Any immediate reactions?
He's supposed to be a rather laid-back PI, and and the game's set in the early 80s.
I'm worrying maybe the face has too few shades, especially compared to the jacket, which perhaps could be simplified in return. Well well.

This board is for threads that are a tad too silly, pointless or irrelevant for the general discussion board.

As of April 2012, there will not be a place only for popular threads, like the previous "popular threads" forum; instead it's all about the content.

This forum will this thus be largely unmoderated. You're still expected to use your common sense, and abide by a few recommendations;
* Don't break any laws. No links to illegal sharing, no libel, no personal threats etc.
* Don't flood the forum. Nonsense is best served in small portions.

Thank you and happy silly posting.