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Did anyone participate? The games went to freeplay last night.

http://www.indiespeedrun.com

Oh.. I also made games with Ben304 and the Primordia guys that you might want to play (And totally rate fairly (highly))

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/indie-speed-run/?game=279
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/indie-speed-run/?game=253

This is a sort of sister post to the current tropes vs women thread and I'm interested in what the feminist ladies have to say because I seem to disagree with all the feminist angles I've read.

PZ Myers, a popular atheist and feminist blogger, has just accused Michael Shermer of multiple accounts of rape: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/08/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade

As far as I can see this is just straight out libel and slander. Rape is a serious business and you can't throw around those accusations without some evidence.
PZ doesn't seem to provide any evidence except that someone told him so but even if he did have evidence I still don't think it would appropriate to publish such information.

Feminists argue that, by publishing the material, PZ is possibly protecting women from future assaults and that it's better that Shermer be libelled than another woman be raped.
They also argue that evidence collection for such a crime is difficult and requires swift action and that, even with evidence, such a crime is difficult to prove.

So is our justice system necessarily biased against victims in this case due to the doctrine of innocent until proven guilty?
If so, then should women use other tactics such as potential libel and slander in order to protect themselves and others?

[Wait, it's coded in Lua? Won't that be really slow?]

Hello

As some of you may have seen, my last MAGS game was released using a different engine to AGS. I hope to continue its development further on and off over the next few months.

The engine aims to be a modern alternative to AGS which provides better support for high resolution games and which is hardware accelerated at all stages. The engine will use Lua scripting and use Love2D for its rendering and sound support. Because Adore will be coded in Lua at a very fundamental level all stages of the game will be overridable by the user either globally or for individual objects. Don't like the pathfinding? Feel free to write your own. Dislike the way Say commands are rendered? Just override it and the engine will continue as normal, calling Say commands just like the built in version.

Wait, it's coded in Lua? Won't that be really slow?

It's true that Lua is slower than raw c++ but AGS itself doesnt really do that much calculation under the hood. The most complex calculation is probably the pathfinder which usually has 2 or 3 nodes to consider and is over in a flash. The bottlenecks in AGS's speed are the CPU based rendering (dynamicsprites and so forth) which Adore does not have and it's unoptimized scripting language. My tests indicate that Lua is about an order of magnitude faster than AGS script in most cases. I've yet to find a situation in which AGS beats Lua for speed. (Cue monkey_05_06, stage left)

Why are you posting? Get on with it!

Adore will probably adhere to alot of AGS's conventions such as Characters, Rooms, Objects and so on but it does not have to. We have an opportunity here to reconsider the adventure game paradigm and create a tool that can facilitate that without being tied to an old code base. So I want to ask what *fundamental* things about AGS that you would change. How should objects and rooms work? How should the hierarchy be arranged? What annoys you about AGS? What things do you think AGS should be able to do that it does not?

Here are a few that I've already thought about and taken on board.

- The option for polygonal regions and walkable areas. High resolution games don't play well with bitmap masks and they are slower and use more memory.
- (optional) Sub pixel accuracy for all objects for smoother animations.
- A rethink of the "blocking" paradigm that AGS has. Multiple threads? Coroutines?
- Bone based animation built in.
- Pixel shaders.

Why are you posting on the AGS Forums about a competing engine? Are you mental?

I doubt Adore could replace AGS in a lot of ways. Firstly the barrier to entry is likely to be higher since AGS is very user friendly and Adore would be more modern and so require more programming expertise. Secondly I don't think Adore could cope with traditional, pixel art games as well as AGS can. AGS has that sierra/lucas arts feel down to a tee. With Adore I'm hoping to allow the creation of newer, more modern adventure games which is where AGS has traditionally struggled.

I'm looking for testers for my MAGS game.

Holla at a brother.

My girlfriend is a newly qualified art teacher and she is looking for work but the market is *very* competitive at the moment and she has had a success rate of 0% thus far. I think this is mostly due to her personal statement. This is the area of the application in which one 'pimps' themselves. Is anyone an active teacher either in the UK or elsewhere who could possibly give some advice? Even if you're not a teacher yourself but perhaps someone else involved with recruitment or HR your input would be appreciated.

The job in question is this one: http://www.leeds-art.ac.uk/home/job-vacancies/vacancies/vacancy/study-skills-tutor/

She is, as far as i can tell, exceptionally suited to the position so we want to have absolutely everything covered to give her the best chance of being shortlisted.

Here is the text in full of what we have so far:

Spoiler

My interest in education and the learning process began when I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. Upon learning more about the condition I began to understand why I had such trouble at school when dyslexia was not routinely identified in students. I realised then that I could perhaps help those in a similar situation to my own and be sure that all learners could be taught inclusively while safeguarding the needs of children and vulnerable adults. This is consequently my main goal as an educator. As someone with fairly severe dyslexia, who has learnt how to deal with the challenges associated with learning difficulties first hand, I feel I am exceptionally qualified for the position.

I elected to study a Fine Art degree at Nottingham Trent specialising in photography and digital art. Immediately after completing my degree I enrolled in a DTLLS course with a view to teach older students in a further education environment.

During my DTLLS course I took part in a volunteer placement at Ashfield Technology College teaching mainly in their Sixth Form. I was responsible for leading and planning lessons in Photography and Art at GCSE, A-Level and BTEC levels. In addition to my main classes I also ran after school and lunchtime sessions for those hoping to achieve higher grades or those who perhaps needed some extra time and guidance. The achievement level of the students in my classes was exemplary and all but one of my students achieved their predicted grade or higher and all but one of my students achieved a C or greater (or the equivalent in their course). Also while at Ashfield School I contributed resources for other staff to use. For instance, at the time the school used a worksheet for photography entitled “The Three Rs”. These were Relationship, Recognition and Realisation. I felt this lacked perhaps the most important part of one's development as a working artist and refined and submitted my own version which included a fourth R; Reflection. My version was adopted by the teaching staff and is now taught in place of the old lesson.

One of my main classes while teaching at Ashfield was a level 2 BTEC class especially tailored for students with learning difficulties. This was certainly my favourite class to teach as I felt that I was not only using my training as a teacher but also my experience in the education system as someone with a learning difficulty.

My primary interest in art lies within the digital domain. As an artist I specialise in digital painting for media projects and have produced works for independent video games. The games industry is the largest entertainment industry in the world and provides a very solid career for those in the creative sector and never fails to energise my students. With this in mind I am currently studying 3D modelling as an artistic discipline with a view to perhaps teaching it when such courses become available. In addition to digital art I also have a love for analogue, lo-fi photography such as Lomography and DIY photography like solargraphs and pin-hole cameras. Sculpture has also been very important to me as an artist as I began my artistic practice with Mod-Rock sculpture at college.

My digital art practise has ensured that I am extremely computer literate with both Macs and Windows PCs. I am adept with practically every mainstream program and more than familiar with many lesser-known ones. These include the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop et al.), the Apple range (mainly Aperture) and some other lower-cost alternatives such as Art Rage. In addition to my extensive experience with art packages I can also use office software including Microsoft Office and Open/Libre Office. My work at Ashfield School also taught me to be very at home in their modern VLE.

My own experiences as a student, coupled with my training as a teacher have defined my philosophy of valuing each child as an individual, while not disregarding their part in a community. Students learn best, in my opinion, when exposed to as many learning opportunities as possible. This is especially important when preparing them for later life. A creatively designed curriculum is essential to develop a student's understanding of a subject and the skills they need to apply that understanding. Learning creatively through art and related subjects not only supports sections of the Every Learner Matters agenda but I feel it is also a necessary part of students' education.


I am able to manage challenging behaviour in the classroom but I think it's important to work towards finding the root cause and resolve it for the student. I try to find common ground with students who are disinterested to encourage them to participate in lesson. I also find it helpful to open up the facilities and work with students one to one or in small groups at lunchtimes and after school to help them catch up if needed. I have a student centred approach when teaching, making every effort to support, motivate and encourage the individual learner.

Besides art, I also have a strong interest in literature and I am the co-founder of a bi-weekly creative writing group. My role in the group is to organise our activities for the meeting and to provide pastoral care and motivation to the members. Creative writing can be something of a disheartening process so my services are required almost every week to rally the group. This can sometimes cause tempers to flare but as a resilient leader I am always able to mediate and calm the group. I find my training as a teacher invaluable in this regard.

Continued education is very important to me and I am always eager to pursue new avenues of study whether they are vocational or academic in nature. Following my QTLS (and QTS by-proxy) certification I hope to enrol in a part-time, flexible MA in Education at The University of Nottingham to increase my understanding of the education process. This is a distance learning course and will not reduce my effectiveness in the classroom while studying.

Outside of teaching, I have a strong background in team-based customer service. These positions provided me with skills that are easily transferable into the classroom. My time at a bartender taught me the valuable art of mediation under trying conditions and my time at Ikea, who are famous for their team-based approach, prepared me for working as part of a driven and professional team. My brief stint as a receptionist in a busy veterinary surgery taught me how to be exceptionally organised under pressure.

I would truly welcome the opportunity to help those with learning difficulties as best I can. I am not afraid of hard work and feel I would be an asset to your team.

[close]

EDIT: Updated with grammatical fixes.

I've started a devlog, chronicling my progress in rebooting the McCarthy series. I'm going to write about challenges of making an adventure game in AGS using the Lua plugin. I'm going to mostly stick with technical stuff and how to structure a game in Lua rather than design but i'm sure some of that will seep in too.

http://themccarthychronicles.tumblr.com/

Since some work has recently been done on the blending functions for GUIs can this blending function also be put into DrawImage? DrawImage currently doesnt allow one to blend two alpha channels together which is a bit of a pain.

The Lua Plugin doesnt seem to work with the linux version. I've compiled it from the git and I get the following:

â”Å'â”â,¬[steve][archlaptop][~/evilhouse/Compiled]
â””â”â,¬Ã¢â€â,¬Ã¢â€¢Â¼ ags evilhouse.exe 
AGS: Adventure Game Studio v3.3 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 Chris Jones and 2011-20xx others
ACI version 3.3.0.1132

AGS: ***** ENGINE STARTUP
AGS: Reading config file
AGS: Initializing allegro
AGS: Setting up window
AGS: Initializing game data
AGS: Game data file: /home/steve/evilhouse/Compiled/evilhouse.exe

AGS: Initializing TTF renderer
AGS: Initializing mouse
AGS: Checking memory
ci_find_file: cannot change to directory: Compiled
ci_find_file: cannot change to directory: Compiled
AGS: Initializing keyboard
AGS: Install timer
Checking sound inits.
AGS: Initialize sound drivers
AGS: Install exit handler
AGS: Initialize path finder library
AGS: Initialize gfx
AGS: Load game data
AGS: Built library path: ./libagslua.so
AGS: dlopen returned: ./libagslua.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
AGS: Built library path: /home/steve/evilhouse/Compiled/libagslua.so
AGS: dlopen returned: /home/steve/evilhouse/Compiled/libagslua.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
AGS: Plugin loading failed, trying built-in plugins...
AGS: No built-in plugin found. Plugin loading failed!
AGS: No placeholder functions for the plugin found. The game might fail to load.
An internal error has occurred. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.
(ACI version 3.3.0.1132)

Error: load room: unable to deserialize prop schema
AGS: ***** ENGINE HAS SHUTDOWN

I am using a x64 version of Arch Linux.

Ok, there are some things i want to fix in the AGS editor but I can't get AGS.Native to build. I get the following error:

Error   147   error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol __forceCRTManifestCUR   alfont_md_d.lib   AGS.Native

I assume its a library dependency or something since no one else seems to have reported the problem.

Can anyone help?

I noticed this in the repo but the history seems to indicate it was not added by the new engine team.

Are there plans to expand on a file based debugger as opposed to the pipes version? If not, would someone be willing to work with me (from the engine team) to implement a perpetual IPsocket based system?

I get the following crash every so often on room changes but i cant pin point the cause. Can one of the engine devs help?

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x004229AA ; program pointer is +72, ACI version 3.21.1115, gtags (4,0)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.



Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.

An error file CrashInfo.dmp has been created. You may be asked to upload this file when reporting this problem on the AGS Forums. (code 0)
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

I only saw the previous one retrospectively but I think it was really cool. Would Zyndikate, Loominous, Misj and so on be willing to put on another one?

I recommend that it runs concurrently to the normal BGblitz tho since they tend to go on for a while.

I want to convert an AGS region to a series of vertices. Does anyone have any ideas of how to do this?

I have googled it but all the responses seem to be beyond the scope of what i want to do.

A picture:



Basically I want to get the polygons' vertices marked in red, in order, around the shape. I also want to be able to tell which polygon matches which vertices.

Are there any accepted methods for doing this that i dont know about?

Since the zoomable image tag is exclusively used for pixel art it might be a good idea to use css attribs which make the image resize with a nearest neighbour algorithm.

So, I'm on a day shift again so I thought I'd do one of those thread.

Where do you see humanity going? Are we doing ok? Are we getting better? Will capitalism destroy itself as predicted by marx or will it not matter because technology will make the notion of scarcity irrelevant (see Star Trek)? Will an ecological disaster destroy us? Will a new global war erupt as china makes a grab for russia's resources?

What are your predictions for the next 50-100 years?

Would this be a good time to talk about the resolutions that AGS offers?

Currently AGS only offers 4:3 resolutions but the vast majorities of form factors that we deal with now are actually 16:10 or 16:9. Phones, laptops and monitors are almost all not 4:3.

Is this something we could discuss? I think we need a better way of relating the screen to the game res.

Hello everyone,

Wasn't sure where to put this.. its sort of technical but not technical enough to warrant the tech forum.

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that everyone should stop using AGS script and move over to Lua for a wealth of reasons. it seems like a no brainer to me and yet I have seen a lot of resistance. I would like to know why that is and I would like to help wherever I can.

Are there modules you need for lua that I can code for you?
Are you just not sure how to link ags and lua together?
Are you afraid of putting in the effort of learning a new language?
Do you not see the benefits?

Tell me why, AGS forumers and I will do my best to help and ease the transition because I think it is a wasted opportunity for all you cavemen still languishing in AGSScript land.

WHAT PAINT PROGRAMZ SHOULD I USE TO MAKE MY NEW RPG?

I HERD PHOTOSHOP IS GOOD BUT SOME THINK MY ART MAIN PROGRAM DO.

HOW DO I DO SCRIPTING? CAN SOMEON POST A SCRIPT TO MAKE MY CHARACTER LOOK LIKE GAYBRUSH

I NEED A WRITER AND A BACKGROUND ARTIST AND A CHARACTER ARTIST AND A LEAD DESIGNER FOR MY GAME IDEA. IT WILL BE COMMERCIAL AND BASED ON INDIANANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOMM.
INDIANAANNA GOES INTO THE TEMPLE AND GETS THE TRIFORCE I CAN DO THE TRIFORCE GRAPHIC BECAUSE ITS ON THE INTERNET

PLEASE EMAIL ME ON THIS PM FORUM SYSTEM AND REPLY TO MY THREAD FOR MY DESIGN DOCUMENT ABOUT GAYBRUSH AND BANANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF BUMS. IT IS VERY SHORT.

YOUR CINSERELY

CALIN LEAFSHADE.

[Virtue Ethics]

Ok so, it's one of those threads I start when I'm at work on a day shift and have nothing to do.

There are three(maybe four) main ethical positions. I will summarise as briefly as I can and then you can choose which you think is most reasonable and maybe we'll get some kind of discussion going.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is the belief that there are no inherently wrong *actions* but that the morality of a situation is derived from the agents. For instance, a virtue ethicist would not say that murder is wrong but rather that those who commit murder lack virtue. They might say that in some circumstances killing another human being is perfectly justified providing the agent doing the killing is doing so because they are acting for (their own) virtuous reasons.

Virtue theorists say that it is better that we foster good virtues in people (Honesty, Wisdom, Fairness, things like that) rather than focus on individual moral problems. They argue that those kinds of things actually don't matter and if everyone is virtuous then everyone will be happy.

Virtue Ethics can basically be summed up as "Try and be a good person and then do what feels right." It is an emotive position rather than a rational one.

Deontology

Deontology deals with ethics as a duty (Deon means duty). It is characterised as following a strict set of guidelines and never deviating. For instance, if a nazi officer askes you if there are any Jews hiding in you house, you must tell him the truth regardless of the consequences because lying is *always* wrong. Deonists argue that concerning oneself with the consequences of that action is futile because a human agent can never fully know the consequences. Even if the Nazi officer takes the jews and kills them, the deonist can be secure in the knowledge that they did not lie and did not actively cause harm. For instance, they might argue that the nazi officer was in fact a symapthiser and if you told him there *were* jews in your house he would've walked away quietly to avoid catching them. However since you told him no, he puts on a show and searches the house, thus finding the Jews and then he must execute them or his superiors would catch him.

Deontology is the root of Divine Command theory which is basically "God said it, so I'm going to do it without question because it is my duty to do God's will."

Deontology can be summed up as "Follow the rules and do your duty. Do not waver because you cannot know the consequences."

Consequentialism

Consequentialism is basically the thought that ones morality should be based upon the consequences of the actions. If a train is travelling along a track and there are 5 people in it's path but you could throw a switch and divert the train to kill only 1 person (who would be safe if you did nothign) then the consequentialist would throw the switch. They argue that 5 people dying is worse than 1 person dying even if that 1 person was not on the track in danger.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a possible fourth category which I'm dubious to include because it tends to describe what people *actually* do rather than what they *should* do.

Pragmatism tries to frame morality in a scientific kind of way in that it describes what we should "move towards" but acknowledges that it might not be appropriate to apply that morality at the current time. It's similar to consequentialism in that it deals with consequences but if differs in that it deals with *current* consequences that do not apply universally.

For example, slavery. Jefferson argued in his writings that slavery was ultimately wrong in a universal sense but that it could not be abolished immediately because the social framework in america at the time could not take it and the consequences would be dire (a civil war maybe?). A pragmatist argues that although some things may be morally wrong in an ideal world we shouldnt necessarily abolish them immediately because bad things would happen elsewhere were we to do so.

----------------------------

So what do you think? Where do you stand? Or rather, which do you most identify with?

I have more to say on my perceived pros and cons but I think I'll let people throw their hat into the arena first and see the general feeling of the AGS community then I'll stimulate conversation by playing devils advocate.

One thing that AGS does fairly poorly is user data storage. The Lua plugin alleviates this to some degree but I think a non-lua solution would be useful.

So how about a generic XML reader where users can add xml files to a project which get compiled and obfuscated at compile time and then AGS deserialises them at runtime. Something like this.

Code: xml

<Items>
    <Item>
        <Name>Potion</Name>
        <LongName>Potion Of AGS Mastery</LongName>
    </Item>
    <Item>
        <Name>Poison</Name>
        <LongName>Poison of Unfinished Games</LongName>
    </Item>
</Items>

Code: ags

XmlFile *xml = XML.LoadFile("MyFile.XML");
XmlNodeList *list = xml.SelectNodes("/Items/Item");
int i = 0;
while (i < list.Count)
{    
    XmlElement *ele = list.Item[i].GetElement("Name");
    Display(ele.InnerText);
    i++;
}

Thoughts? Useful? Not useful?