Messages

[cJasper.Animating]

As per the manual, the code should read cJasper.Animating, not cJasper.IsAnimating.  But Radiant's right: idle animation would be the easier way.

Baron

What is the exact script mistake (error report)?  What commands does your script contain?  What type of video are you trying to play (i.e. format - like .avi, etc.)?  You will need to post more information before you'll get much help.

Why would you save if the game was over?

Basically you should think of death as just another place ->a room.  When I am making a game I always save my death room as room66, so I don't have to think of it when I send the player there (i.e. player.ChangeRoom (66); -the coordinates don't matter for reasons discussed next).  Room 66 doesn't show the player character (an option in the editor) and usually has objects representing buttons, or sometimes hotspots over pictures of the buttons that I've put in the background image.  The one that says "LOAD" would have a script attached under the "Any click on Object" or "Any click on Hotspot" with RestoreGameDialog ();     Room 66 also usually has a witty message saying that you died, and in my games there's usually a picture of the main character at the moment of death, just for fun, but you could do anything you put your mind to.

Baron

My brother attended one of those programs for a while.  He enjoyed the insights into why he abused alcohol, and how it impacted his social life.  In the end he got the idea that only socializing through boozing had stagnated his social maturity, which was somehow at the root of his insecurities.  Of course then he just went on drinking, but it wasn't as if he was having the stuff for breakfast.  Binge drinking or spree drinking is what they call it in these parts.  Perhaps he'll grow out of it.
     I guess in the end you'll only get out of it what you put into it.

Baron

[BEST STORY]

For your consideration: Charlie Foxtrot & the Galaxy of Tomorrow.  Sure there was no magic, but....  well, that's about the only thing that was missing.  This game has everything, including a myriad of reasons to nominate it!



The dark horse of this year's awards, I think the game can compete in the following categories:

BEST STORY -A rebel clone tours a zany galaxy that parodies dozens of aspects of sci-fi pop-culture in an uproariously funny adventure while both finding himself and saving the day.  I think that's no mean feat in a plot!

BEST DIALOGUE -Witty or insightful, but never neither.  Who can forget the rants of Ace Kilnobi, the Viet Centauri vet, the casual snarkiness of Jimmy Thnozz the photo bug, or the familiarity-breeds-contempt exchanges between Forbert and Quadra, his long-time wife who has been grafted onto his abdomen? 

BEST NON-PLAYER CHARACTER -I've had a lot of positive responses about the Ace Kilnobi character (Viet Centauri vet).  His outrageous relapses and the shady atmosphere of his den combined to make him very memorable.

BEST PUZZLES -Every puzzle was logical and yet challenging in its own way.  Without giving too much away, players have responded positively to the photo-development sequence, the potato = death mystery, and the walk-without-rhythm puzzle.

BEST ANIMATION -This game has hundreds of animations, involving both background characters and almost every conceivable action by the main character, from getting flushed to being eaten by a dinosaur, from fist-fighting a clown to dancing up a storm.  Also, who could forget the intense fight sequence involving Master Yogo the martial arts expert?

BEST DOCUMENTATION - Well, it was only a five page PDF but it was pretty funny, besides relaying technical and game information.  It appeared to have been published in the Intergalactic Intergazette on Jebsday, the 36th of Pentember, 2997. 

I leave it to you to decide whether or not it is worth nominating.  Just don't not nominate it because you haven't played it: that would be copping out.

Baron

The responsible thing to do would be to plead your excuse (which seems valid) and hope for them to be understanding.

In the UK it's different.. you get picked, you will serve on a jury unless you are either too ill to serve, if you are a criminal or if you turn up drunk or on drugs (in which case you get a 1000 pound fine).

If that fails, you could always make a criminal of yourself....

Gamer Quest!!!

Or The Matrix 386 SX.

One of the two.

There's nothing wrong with your player.Animate (0,5,0,eBlock), as far as I can tell.  Try deleting line 104 (or using double slashes "//" to turn it into comments) and run the game again.  If it works (without animation, obviously) then we'll know for sure that's the problem.

Another thing to consider: I don't notice a Lockview command before you call the animation.  Something like player.Lockview (5); where five is the view you want to animate.  You may also want to call the opposite unlock view command afterwards, depending on the nature of the animation.

Baron

To abort the game press ALT X and it should give the script line.  Don't forget to tell us which line that is, since we can't see the numbers.

You want to call your character animation with this command:

Character.Animate(int loop, int delay, optional RepeatStyle, optional BlockingStyle, optional Direction)

Assuming your character has the name "Television", then cTelevision.Animate (1, 0, eRepeat, eNoBlock). 

For a random loop, you might be able to get away with calling random for the loop parameter.  Something like cTelevision.Animate (Random (3) +1, 0, eRepeat, eNoBlock), where you would get a random number of either 0, 1 or 2 (3 numbers) +1, giving either loop 1, 2, or 3. 

If that backfires you will have to declare a variable and randomize it before calling the animation command.  So at the very  top of your script you'd create a variable, say int loopswitch, and then when you want the random channel you would write:

loopswitch = random (3) +1;
cTelevision.Animate (loopswitch, 0, eRepeat, eNoBlock);

Hope that helps!

Baron

EDIT: Yes, pay attention to Monkey_05_06's post below -the Random function is indeed inclusive!

Why do you have the same expression for your if statement and your else statement?

if (GetGlobalInt(5) <= 0) {

else {
if (GetGlobalInt(5) <= 0)

I can't see the latter scenario ever being called.

As for your animation, I assume you have to abort the game if it freezes.  When you do so the editor should give you a script line (i.e Game aborted Room 1, line 254).  That should indicate where exactly its freezing, and then we might be able to help you more.

It's possible if you have a very narrow walkable area for the character to get caught sometimes.  In any event, I recommend a quick bit of code in Player Enters Room After Fade-In:

if (cTheCharacter.PreviousRoom == 16) cTheCharacter.Walk (x, y, eBlock, eAnywhere);

The important bit being the eAnywhere, which will allow the character to walk over non-walkable areas.  It will make the character appear to walk into the room, rather than just appear at its edge.  I often use it when I have a player entering from the bottom of the screen.  I have the characters feet transport to about forty pixels off the bottom of the screen, and then use the code above to walk him up to the walkable area.

Baron

Does the not finalized GUI include the "smell" icon from SQ4?  I think it only had one use, but it sure was fun to have around.

With all the ripped graphics I hope you put all the extra effort into plot and gags -looking forward to it.

Baron

cEnemy.Walk (int x, int y, optional BlockingStyle, optional WalkWhere);

where enemy is your character's name.  The third argument is either game blocking (eBlock) or goes on in the background while the game continues (eNoBlock).  The last argument is either eAnywhere, which ignores your rooms walkable areas, or leave it out if you want them to stay on your walkable areas.

If you mean how do you move your NPCs with something similar to artificial intelligence then you've probably still got a lot of reading ahead of you.  I'd set up some triggers under "Repeatedly Execute" like when the player character gets too close (e.g. cPlayer.x > cEnemy.x -20) or when a timer goes off (IsTimerExpired (1) ==1).

Baron

Ah, you know I've actually done that several times, but I still instinctively look for the button  : .

Alright I've used 3.0 for all the basic things, and overall I must say I like the new format, especially the tabs.  There are a few areas where I find it a bit slower than previous versions (other than the one mentioned above):

1) On the Main Menu tree (upper right) you see the room you want to edit, and the temptation is to right click it (since that's how you get a new room).  This produces the obvious option to edit the room, but when I click that nothing happens and the option disappears.

2) When you are editing a property of a frame in a view, for example, you have to click an extra time: once to select that property (say "flipped") and once to change it.  In previous versions you could just click once and it would change.  Same thing in the room properties for "player is initially visible" and object properties for "object is initially visible", and probably any other option that was just a radio button on previous versions.

3) There is also an extra click required with 3.0 to import sprites to view frames.  In previous versions you would click "create new frame" and the new frame would be automatically selected.  Now you have to click again to select it and then double click to change the graphic, meaning a lot of extra clicking for long animations.

4) When, as with the previous example, you get the sprite folder that lists your sprites, they are displayed in a narrow window (3 abreast on my monitor), whereas in previous versions it would automatically expand to full screen with 8 sprites per row.  I can expand the window, but that requires an extra click, and it won't repeat with that size the next time, again meaning an extra click or a lot of extra scrolling.

5) Also in the sprite list, I find the "previously used sprite" indication very faint, whereas in previous versions it was much more apparent which one you used last.

6) This is not so much a problem as a preference, for it has not been implemented in any AGS version hereto.  Is it possible when displaying sprites (for importing to frames) to list the previously used one in the top row, instead of the bottom?  I often find I'm scrolling down to see the next row, but there is rarely a reason to scroll up.

Otherwise the changes are time/effort neutral, or an improvement, so far as I can tell.  Oh -is there a button I'm missing that will jump me right to the room script, instead of having to click the interaction lighting bolt and then a random interaction (i.e. the old "{ }" button)?

BaRoN

I tend to draw all the frames of an animation in the same file, so I can look at previous movements when drawing the current one.  So I am often importing ten-twenty sprites from the same file.  In older versions if you right-clicked and chose "Import Sprite from File" it would return to the previous file automatically (at least if you had just imported from that file).  With 3.0 it wants me to select the file from a menu each and every time, which is slightly slower but more importantly I find I lose my place with the extra action in between.
       Otherwise it's looking pretty good.  I'm making a quick year-in-review slideshow over the next couple of days and I've decided to test-drive 3.0 to make it.  I'll report back if I find anything major along the way.

Baron

Ah....  It's kind of confusing to use score to represent health anyway.  Why not create a variable named "health"?

int health =100;   //(at the beginning of your script)

Something like this should do it:

if (score <= 0) cPlayer.ChangeRoom (24);

Of course you'll probably want to add an animation and other effects, so you'd need braces around the code if it's going to be more than the one line I have above.

Baron

Alright,
       An average everyman type character is the only survivor of an interstellar spacecraft crash on a strange alien jungle world.  He activates the distress beacon, which will send ships traveling at light speed across the cosmos to rescue him, but the signal will take three days to reach the nearest base.  The character now has three days (1 hour in game time, broken into three 10 minute days and three 10 minute nights) with but one mission: survive.  He must use his wits and observations to solve the terrible perils of his temporary home.  Death would be a frequent outcome, but through judicious game saves and close attention to details the player would be able to steer this character through increasingly elaborate dangers.

Now, make my game!

BaRoN