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Many thanks Twin Moon.
I thought your game was more creatively courageous than mine: the concept definitely has potential.  I guess all those MAGS voters are conservative in their game outlooks, however.  One question:  I never did find a different ending to your game, though I played it through four times.  Is there an alternate ending, or just different ways of arriving at the same conclusion?

Baron

[1) You might congratulate me on the birth of my daughter.]

That's right -this rising starlet is going to make games that will blow your socks off  ...starting in about fourteen years.



A male dominated community though this may be, we all know it's the gals that dominate in terms of creativity and focussed productivity.  I have every confidence that such will be the case again in this instance.

So the purpose of this thread is two fold:

1) You might congratulate me on the birth of my daughter.  She is healthy and perfect in every way.  Those of you at Mittens last year will be pleased to know that today I've enjoyed a nice big pint of Guinness for the first time in nine months -drink to her health for me, will you?

2) Discussion about a second generation of AGSers.  The first generation of ASL (American Sign Language) speakers used the language only crudely, but those who learned it from their earliest years became brilliantly fluent beyond all expectation.  Do you think there is this potential when AGS is used from a younger age?  What benefit do you see AGS having as a way for youngsters to develop creatively, artistically, logically or sillily (have you played my latest games?).  I'm interested in your thoughts.

Baron

All things being equal, it's usually a productive starting point.

It's pretty clearly Mr. Snuffleupagus.

A little later than predicted, but at least it's done!  See post above for details.

Baron

"due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog"

[STUDIO MEDIOCRE]

I'm operating under the assumption of being done by the end of tomorrow (11 pm Eastern Standard time, February 24).  I might be able to speed this up a bit.... maybe.  I'll try.

I might as well reserve this spot for the game.  I'll tell about it now, and post the download link when it's releasable.

STUDIO MEDIOCRE
The Case of the Bedeaded Dramatist



You play the hack actor who plays Inspector Glum, the star of a detective serial at Studio Mediocre.  A murder on the adjacent set gives him the opportunity to turn his show and his career around.  Fiction merges with fact as he hunts clues and suspects throughout the Studio -whether the cameras are running or not.  The result [is expected to be] a hopelessly muddled mystery married to hilarious discontinuity.



DOWNLOAD NOW

I started designing this game with the intent of it being modular, with intentionally incongruous rooms, so that it could be released as a template for people eager to write games but not so eager to spend a lot of time on character art and animation.  Deadlines meant that in the end there were fewer characters (not to mention fewer puzzles) than I would have liked, but at least it turned out like something resembling a game.

Oh -Caution.  I've played every scene of this game and it seems to work alright, but not all of it together.  So.... good luck!

Baron

Put them in whatever folder you want.  When you open the editor it gives you the options to:

1) start a new game.
2) Continue an existing game.
3) Continue a recently edited game.

If you chose the second option (continue an existing game) a browse window will appear and you can find where you saved the template (most of my game folders are on my desktop for convenience's sake).  Simply load the ac2game file in the template's folder.  Once you've edited it once you should be able to chose it from the recently edited list.

Baron

Ah, you might have to put brackets around those (-1) to multiply them.  You did declare the variables, right?  If you are using repeatedly execute in a room then you can declare them at the top of the room script.

But try Pablo's script, since he's got it to work and I just made mine up.  The simpler approach is appealing also.

Baron

[The main character and plot must be in a performance, and he/she must be aware that it is a performance.]

Well, I understand everybody being busy, but the rules are too demanding?  C'mon! 

The "MUST-HAVE" rules:

- Every entry's story needs to be communicated as a performance on a stage
- Try to make the player realize at any point of your game, that he's actually in a theatre playing
- You might want to keep the focus on the stage, meaning the player character should be an actor, but if you involve i.e. a person from the audience, that can be the player character, too
- Try to conclude in a clear moral that the play communicates
- You can do anything to the stage (i.e. use pyrotechnics, rotate the stage to a vertical stand, ...)
- The play can be anything you like: A great magician on stage, a circus, a musical - anything you can find on a stage, but be aware of the fact that you MUST tell a story within the program of the performer.

    The main character and plot must be in a performance, and he/she must be aware that it is a performance.    Everything else is "try" or "you might" or "nice to have"-> hardly imperative commands (although I myself intend to try to meet most).  There have been more complicated and demanding rules in the past, and I recall many instances of entries not quite meeting the "must have rules" anyway.  Just admit you don't have the time or are just not inspired: don't bash the topic.

Better yet, feel chastised by my rant and decide to enter the competition after all  .

Baron

To get your player to face the right direction is pretty easy: the trick would be to get him moving fluidly.
The walk cycle is probably choppy because you are calling the walk command again and again every single game cycle (40 times a second), which prevents the whole loop from running.  The best way to solve this is to not have your player "walk" at all.  Since you are updating his x/y coordinates manually, just set the character idle (in his walk view) if his position is not equal to the mouse position. Something like this:

Code: ags

 --TOP OF MAIN SCRIPT--
int xdiff; 
int ydiff;
int playmove; //0 if stopped, 1 if moving  (could be boolean....)

Code: ags

-- REPEATEDLY EXECUTE --
if (player.x == mouse.x && player.y == mouse.y) { 
       player.SetIdleView (-1, 0);   // change to standing view
       playmove =0; }
}
if (player.x  != mouse.x || player.y != mouse.y){
      if (playmove ==0) {   //this stops the idle view from being constantly restarted 
            player.SetIdleView (____, 0);
            playmove =1;
      }
  xdiff = player.x -mouse.x;
  if (xdiff < 0) xdiff *-1; //creating absolute distances (I don't see a math function in the manual to do it).
  ydiff = player.y - mouse.y;
  if (ydiff < 0) ydiff * -1;
  if (xdiff > ydiff){   //the side to side distance from mouse to player is greater than up down distance
      player.FaceLocation (mouse.x, player.y); 
   }
   else { player.FaceLocation (player.x, mouse.y);  }

   //and finally you'd put the movement code, much as Radiant has it above, only in the new syntax

      if (player.x < mouse.x) player.x ++;
       if (player> mouse.x) player.x --;
       if (player.y < mouse.y) player.y ++;
       if (player.y > mouse.y) player.y --;
}

Of course I haven't tried any of this, but hopefully it will give you a good start.

Baron

I wouldn't think that you'd need any version of AGS just to play the game - you only need it to make/edit games.  Isn't the KQ1 download a self-installing exe?  I don't know what you do with those on a Mac, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with AGS itself.

Strange.....
         I left the editor on and let my computer hibernate while I was at work, and when I returned I tried to save again and it saved fine (!).  So I did close the editor and started it back up again, and everything is fine and where it should be.  Er.....  thanks!

Baron

Ah, I've created an error!

I've only changed the colour (to 16 bit), the resolution (to 640x480), imported 30 or so sprites, put them into two views, created two characters, imported one room background and flooded the entire room with a walkable area (for testing).  I have not scripted anything.  I downloaded the latest version two days ago, so I think I'm up to date:

Error: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
Version: AGS 3.0.0.23

System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
   at GetRelativeSpriteWidth(Int32 )
   at AGS.Native.NativeMethods.GetRelativeSpriteWidth(Int32 spriteSlot)
   at AGS.Editor.ViewPreview.previewPanel_Paint(Object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.PaintWithErrorHandling(PaintEventArgs e, Int16 layer, Boolean disposeEventArgs)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

The error occurred when I hit CTRL S.  I had saved the game about an hour previous, with no problems.  Since then I had imported 10 character sprites, set up four loops in a view, named the view, created a new character (selecting the named view using browse), and made that new character the player character.  The game still works, except the new view will not be previewed for the character -instead a giant red X appears.  The view previews fine for the other character, and works when I test the game with the problem character.

I am intrigued by the theme.  I don't have a lot of spare time these days, but perhaps I will create a simple entry.

EDIT: Well, I've spent two days playing around with concepts, so I guess I'm updating my status from "perhaps" to "actively participating".  Any other takers?

You want to look in the manual under the QuitGame and RestoreGame dialogues, respectively.

If the bookshelf just has to do one animation, and not be floating around, then KhrisMUC is right: It would be much easier just to have the elements on the shelf as separate graphics overlapping identical graphics drawn on the bookshelf object.  Then, when the time comes for the bookcase to fall over:

Code: ags

oRadio.Visible =false;
oDictionary.Visible =false;
oEverythingelse.Visible =false;  //etc.
oBookshelf.SetView (int view, optional int loop, optional int frame); //where view and loop refer to your falling over animation.

Now say later on, if you want to have objects animating on their shelves separately, you could just switch the bookcase object graphic at runtime to a copy of your bookcase that has been left empty, so that the duplicated object graphics wouldn't show behind the movements of the objects.  The trick to this is to draw frames around your bookshelf graphics so that when you import them they are exactly the same size.  Er... don't import the frames, just everything they enclose.  Then I think the command for switching the graphic is oBookshelf.Graphic = sprite slot;    None of this will be visible to the player since it happens instantly.  And then, when it is time for the falling over animation, you switch the graphic back (probably by setting its view, for the animation).

Baron

I think you just have to add yourself to a new location, and the old one automatically deletes.  Unless of course you have a new account.

In my opinion, it would be easiest to just have one object and use Gilbot's co-ordinate coding for different interactions.  You say that the image won't be static, so it would be a pain to co-ordinate all the different objects in terms of simultaneous movement when the only benefit would be simpler coding.  Since the objects won't leave/change the coding approach seems best.

So in your room script under, say, interact with object (the whole bookcase) you'd have some conditional coding such as:

Code: ags

 if (mouse.Y <= oBookshelf.Y + 20)  Display ("The Radio can't be turned on.");  //the top shelf
if ((mouse.Y >= oBookshelf.Y +21) && (mouse.Y <= oBookshelf.Y +40)) { Display("That book is too boring to take."); //the next shelf down...

So the proper message will be returned depending on where your mouse was when the interaction click occurred, relative to the bookshelf's current location (remember object coordinates are measured from the upper corner, while character coordinates from the middle of the bottom  : ).  Of course you'd have to line the coordinates up so that the correct messages would be displayed, that's the finicky bit....

Baron

[character.Walk]

Some quick research would lead you to the AGS wiki.  Isn't the manual packaged with AGS 2.7, accessible via the help menu in AGS itself?

I would recommend looking at the manual somewhere to closely inspect an example of character.Walk to see where you might be making your mistake.  In the online version you can find it under scripting -> character properties and functions.  In AGS itself there will be an alphabetical index.

Baron