Topics

Long story short... anybody looking for a body? Ideal for medical or catering students. Sorry, UK residents and collect only, the package weighs about ten stone. As far as I can determine it's male. I'll shift it for £50 but I'm open to offers. Dead fresh and at time of writing, lukewarm.

Thanks
'Joe Bloggs'

I need help again

Each location in my game can have four exits... north east south and west.

Code: ags

loc[1].nor = 2;
loc[2].sou = 1;
loc[3].eas = 4;
loc[4].wes = 3;

In this fashion they are all interlinked.

Now, say I want to generate a physical map of the location network. I need some kind of formula to position components on a drawing surface. The result would look something like this:



As an aside, the generated map doesn't need long line connectors, only short ones like between the green star and tavern. Here's what I've come up with so far, but it's not ideal:

Code: ags

//Map Components
   //Squares
         //'you are here' square - 12x12, slot 10
         //plain square - 12x12, slot 7
         //tavern square...
         //stable square... 
   //Connectors
         //1 vertical line - 4x6, slot 8
         //1 horizontal line - 6x4, slot 9



DynamicSprite *sprite;
DrawingSurface *surface;

function GenerateMap()
{
      sprite = DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(Map.Graphic);    //Map.Graphic is 162x112, and invisible
      surface = sprite.GetDrawingSurface(); surface.Clear();

      int x = (Map.Width/2)-6,    //find the centre point and -6, because 1 square is 12x12 so it must span the centre
          y = (Map.Height/2)-6;

      surface.DrawImage(x, y, 10);  //mob[0] is the player. draw their location.

            if (loc[mob[0].loc].nor != 0) {    //ie, there is an exit to the north
                  surface.DrawImage(x, y-18, 7); //draw a plain square
                  surface.DrawImage(x+4, y-6, 9); //draw a line connecting the two
            }

            if (loc[mob[0].loc].eas != 0) {   
                  surface.DrawImage(x+18, y, 7);
                  surface.DrawImage(x+12, y+4, 8);
            }

            if (loc[mob[0].loc].sou != 0) {  
                  surface.DrawImage(x, y+18, 7);
                  surface.DrawImage(x+4, y+12, 9);
            }

            if (loc[mob[0].loc].wes != 0) {  
                  surface.DrawImage(x-18, y, 7);
                  surface.DrawImage(x-6, y+4, 8);
            }

   surface.Release();
   Map.NormalGraphic = sprite.Graphic;
}

As I say, it's pretty useless because it only draws the direct satellite locations of the current location. What I need to do is get the satellite locations of the satellite locations of the satellite locations... etc. In this way I create a map of the network, with the current location in the centre.

I would need some kind of concatanating sequence:

Code: ags

if (loc[mob[0].loc].nor != 0) //draw
if (loc[loc[mob[0].loc].nor].nor != 0) //draw
if (loc[loc[loc[mob[0].loc].nor].nor].nor != 0) //draw

But this would be ridiculous, especially as there are 100s of locations. Any ideas for alternatives? :/

Hi, I'm rewriting the way my text game works, so all the data is catalogued in scripts rather than defined in individual rooms. I already know something like the following is possible:

Code: ags

quest[1].log[4] = "You spoke to Lord Woodfoot, who made it clear the gnomes will come to feast at Meyrnost if their vegan lifestyle is catered for.";

Each location can have items in it, so I would like to take the above a step further by doing something like the following:

Code: ags

loc[2].name = "Meyrnost Athenium";

loc[2].item[1].name = "Borromdock";
loc[2].item[1].desc = "A sweet smelling plant.";
loc[2].item[1].pickup = true;

Is this possible? I want to have the room items in a sub-class of the location (loc) class.

No thread about him? If anybody influenced the 21st century the most, Steve Jobs is among them. Things would be very different without the products he helped to design and create.

[Topic: 'You, From the Future']

Topic: 'You, From the Future'

This month's guidelines were set by Duzz:

The topic is not limited, but the protagonist must meet their future self at some point in the game.

Ideas to help you:

• You give yourself advice on a tough upcoming decision.
• Your future self brings news.
• You won't tell yourself whether you hooked up with the woman of your dreams!



Ending 31/10/11



What is MAGS?

MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, or provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

You may get help for the competition, although you must end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it proves difficult to organize a big team within thirty days. You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception; you can use free material that is available to the public, if you wish. Modules and templates are also allowed. Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute). Sure, you can make a game and rush it - but don't do this just to win by default.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Third, finally, and most importantly, post your game here, including:

✓ A working download link.
✓ The title of your game.
✓ A suitable screenshot.

At the end of the month, the all-important voting will begin! This period usually lasts fifteen days. Should you win, along with announcing the next month's rules, your name and game will be immortalised in the MAGS Archive. For more information visit the Official MAGS website.

[1.]

Everybody loves choices!


1. Write about a scientific or technological breakthrough that would change life as we know it. You've probably heard recently about the developments at Cern.
2. Create a shape poem. To make it easier you could post it as an image, using monowidth fonts, or however else you wish. Any subject. Examples:



3. Write a story with the protagonist as any figure from history. The scenario can be of your choice. Mother Teresa goes on a booze up for example.
4. Write a proper gritty action story. Brawls, guns, rooftop chases, and epic one-liners (avoid clichés; "any last words?" "say your prayers" etc. Exceptions made for any lines uttered by Clint).


If one or more of the above takes your fancy you go do your thang gurlfryend!! Ending Monday 10th October. I'll do trophies if I get time.

[Topic: 'Broomsticks and Boomsticks']

Topic: 'Broomsticks and Boomsticks'

This month's guidelines were set by Ghost:

Make a game set in a world where magic and technology exist - be it a classic steampunk
universe, our world after some strange event that "created" magic, or whatever you can
think of. Magic, technology (or a combination thereof) must feature in the plot, but feel
free to treat them as rivals, allies or just two different means to achieve a goal.

Ideas to help you:

• An assasin is sent out to kill a hight-ranking mage when his technical equipment fails.
• A wizard falls in love with a tinkerer.
• A boy finds out he's good at technology but can also do magic.
• Gandalf and the Terminator fight for domination of a post-nuclear wasteland.



Note: wow, it's now been a year since I took over hostship?
So in honour of your glorious leader you must dedicate your game to me (or suffer a -5 vote penalty). That's only fair, right?

Ending 30/9/11



What is MAGS?

MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, or provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

You may get help for the competition, although you must end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it proves difficult to organize a big team within thirty days. You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception; you can use free material that is available to the public, if you wish. Modules and templates are also allowed. Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute). Sure, you can make a game and rush it - but don't do this just to win by default.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Third, finally, and most importantly, post your game here, including:

✓ A working download link.
✓ The title of your game.
✓ A suitable screenshot.

At the end of the month, the all-important voting will begin! This period usually lasts fifteen days. Should you win, along with announcing the next month's rules, your name and game will be immortalised in the MAGS Archive. For more information visit the Official MAGS website.

Does AGS support x.5pt size fonts?

[definitely not]

I don't mind if I don't know you. It just means we have a lot of catching up to do. So how's your life going? I can't complain about mine. What's your first memory? Being scared by thunder. What did you do today? I didn't do much. I never do. And what films do you like? I have too many to name right now. What bands do you like? I've got a recent thing for Ribspreader. Look them up, they're quite good. I'm surprised with myself. Death metal is such a CPU hog though, lol.

The state of modern pop music is atrocious! It's all mechanical, churned out rubbish with throw-away melodies. Having said that, dub-step is really beginning to take over and I must admit I enjoy some of the tracks. When a genre like that becomes popular though, it becomes watered down and you no longer get to the classic creative, meaningful core of it (ie, when it becomes big $$$).

This is definitely not a troll, spam, or a joke. This is the opportunity to be deadly serious and share in a rush of manic perspective. So who wants to talk about anything. But no politics. And no charged religious discussion. Just life. What is yours like?

Say the player has a maximum damage of 10 (in a battle).

A random number from the range 1-10 is deducted from the opponent's defence/health each turn.

What I'd like to implement is a distributed chance so they're more likely to hit with numbers in the middle of this range (5s and 6s); and only a small chance of hitting 1s or 10s.

For example:

1 - 3%
2 - 4%
3 - 6%
4 - 12%
5 - 25%
6 - 25%
7 - 12%
8 - 6%
9 - 4%
10 - 3%

If the player's maximum damage was constantly 10 I may be able to work something out.
But seeing as maximum damage isn't static (depending on your level and weapon rating it ranges from 10-200+), I'm at a loss where to begin. I know it's more of a maths problem

Atelier

Why does it seem that, if you're female and a hard-core gamer, you have to make a statement about it? It's like mentioning you're engaged in every other sentence. Or reminding everybody you're pregnant. Just imagine all three at the same time!

I have no problem with gamer chicks. Dare I say it's a turn on? I mean, they know how to handle a joystick.

It just annoys me when they get all militant and in yo grill about it. Yes the industry is unbalanced. But why do they need their own dedicated girl-power site? They're only creating more of a gender divide by not integrating with everybody else, and reminding everybody at every opportunity they are a gamer, and a girl!

In game design, would it be safe to assume that everybody nowadays has a scroll wheel on their mouse?

I want to simplify things so I can remove tons of up/down buttons (I have multiple list boxes on the screen at one time). Instead, the player can scroll up/down by hovering over the list box and using the mouse wheel.

Flawed or not? Could there be any other alternatives to buttons? Discuss.

When the forums are down I feel like a crack addict being rejected by my dealer. Man am I stoned???

Atelier Out.

[Topic: 'Evil Twin']

Topic: 'Evil Twin'

This month's guidelines were set by vertigoaddict:

Create a game featuring a set of twins or a couple (etc), with one more evil than the other...
For bonus lols you can include a can of compressed air as an inventory item.

To avoid the whole 'define evil' debate, please provide your own definition!

Ideas to help you:

• A child impersonates their sibling to their own advantage.
• Pretty much an episode of Itchy and Scratchy.
• A husband finds out his wife is a matrimonial maniac.



fig 1: a zombie prawn!
fig 2: more creepy children!

Ending 30/8/11



What is MAGS?

MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, or provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

You may get help for the competition, although you must end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it proves difficult to organize a big team within thirty days. You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception; you can use free material that is available to the public, if you wish. Modules and templates are also allowed. Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute). Sure, you can make a game and rush it - but don't do this just to win by default.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Third, finally, and most importantly, post your game here, including:

✓ A working download link.
✓ The title of your game.
✓ A suitable screenshot.

At the end of the month, the all-important voting will begin! This period usually lasts fifteen days. Should you win, along with announcing the next month's rules, your name and game will be immortalised in the MAGS Archive. For more information visit the Official MAGS website.

Hi, what's the best way of comparing two similar, but not necessarily identical, strings?
What I'm looking for is a 'best guess' at which character the player wants to look at.

Code: ags

//string command is what the player types in

if (Parser.Said("look rol"))
{
     int c = 0;
     String s = command.Substring(5, command.Length-5);  // Take off the 'look' and space
     
     while (c <= Game.CharacterCount) {
          if ((s.IndexOf(character[c].Name) != -1) && (character[c].Room == player.Room)) Add(info[character[c].ID].description);
          c++;
     }
}

For example, if the player types "look monk", when the actual script name of the character is "a pious monk", the description is not added.
Everything works if you type in the full name: "look a pious monk" but that's inconvenient.

So how can I make it recognise similar strings, or at least pick out a defining word from the character's name?

I've searched it a bit and just checking, is it still impossible to have custom variables, or do I need to make my own array?

Code: ags

player.Age = 26;
cEgo.Height = "Six foot four";
etc

Hi, I'm working out a percentage of something and it works but doesn't seem very elegant:

Code: ags

float percentage = (IntToFloat(experience)/(IntToFloat(level)*1000.0))*100.0;
lbExp.Text = String.Format("%d%", FloatToInt(percentage, eRoundNearest));

Is there a simpler way without converting all these ints and floats?

Also, I'm having trouble with a slider..

Code: ags

// repeatedly_execute_always

expslider.Max = level*1000;           //level x 1000 is the experience to get in every level
expslider.Value = experience;         


if (level*1000 <= experience) {     //the player has enough experience to level up
   
   level++;
   int difference = level*1000 - experience;
   
   experience = 0 + difference;       //any surplus experience is carried on to the next level

}

If the player levels up more than once at a time (ie the difference is still bigger than level*1000), the expslider flickers back and forth while it's calculating it.

So is there a way to stop it updating the expslider until all the calculations are finished? (ie experience is finally less than level*1000). Thank you.

[Topic: 'A Second Chance']

Topic: 'A Second Chance'

This month's guidelines were set by Ben304:

Create a game revolving around somebody getting a second chance to do something they failed to do the first time.

Ideas to help you:

• An unsuccessful murderer fresh from prison sees another opportunity.
• A husband gets a chance at redemption after forgetting last year's anniversary.
• Kasparov sabotages Deep Blue Mk 3 (for all you chess fanboys out there).



Illustrated this month by Ted "Golden Voice" Williams, ex-radio announcer
who after being found homeless was given a second chance on the airwaves!

Ending 31/7/11



What is MAGS?

MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, or provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

You may get help for the competition, although you must end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it proves difficult to organize a big team within thirty days. You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception; you can use free material that is available to the public, if you wish. Modules and templates are also allowed. Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute). Sure, you can make a game and rush it - but don't do this just to win by default.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Third, finally, and most importantly, post your game here, including:

✓ A working download link.
✓ The title of your game.
✓ A suitable screenshot.

At the end of the month, the all-important voting will begin! This period usually lasts fifteen days. Should you win, along with announcing the next month's rules, your name and game will be immortalised in the MAGS Archive. Yet hopefully, at the end of the month, the accomplishment of finishing a game will be your greatest prize. For more information please visit the Official MAGS website.

[1]

Hi, I began a custom dialog function but there are a few problems.

Here it is so far..

Code: ags

function BeginDialog(Dialog* d)
{
    int i = 1;
   
    d.Start();     //Begins dialog
    gDialog.Visible = false;    //I need the options to not be visible, ie, the options don't appear to the player. gDialog is a custom text window GUI


    //Add all the options in the dialog to my display box:

    while (i <= d.OptionCount)
    {
         if (d.GetOptionState(i) == eOptionOn) Add(String.Format("%d - %s", i, d.GetOptionText(i)), 3);
         i++;
    }

}

So it appears like this




1 When the dialog starts, how can I hide the options that appear automatically, but keep the parser box remaining? Because the options are labelled with their ID, you can choose them by typing 1, 2, 3, etc.

2 I notice there's no "d.ChooseOption(1)" command. How can I get it to simulate clicking on one of the options, except you choose the options through the parser?

I still want to be able to use

Code: ags

@1
...
return

@2
...
stop

this from the dialog editor, but have options chosen through the parser. I can use dialog_request, but does this mean I have to write out all the responses in the globalscript? Thanks!

Hi there I made a quest system, and it works. However, all the code is in a separate script other than the globalscript.
So how can I export the struct and array I made so it is accessible to my global script and rooms?

Here's the array and struct..

Code: ags

//--------------- QuestScript.ash

struct Quests {
    String name;
    int progress;
    String description;
    int steps;
};


//------------ QuestScript.asc

Quests quest[Max_Quests];


//define stuff in game start

quest[1].name = "First Quest";
quest[2].steps = 4;                      //etc

So I can do something like this in room_OnCall:

Code: ags

if (quest[1].progress == 1) //do stuff

Apart from that, I'm not altogether sure how export and import really work. It appears I can put my struct in the .ash or .asc and it doesn't really matter. Thanks.