Messages

The Microsoft site suggests that the new >= 2015 bundle is backwards compatible, but would be great if you could test to be sure!

I tested this and confirm that previous recent versions (3.6.0, 3.6.1) also work with this VC Redist.

There have been a number of topics in Tech Support forum over the years, discussing how to script custom speech style, including Visual Novel - style dialogs, in AGS.

Few of them for example:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/advanced-technical-forum/how-to-customize-my-dialog/
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/beginners-technical-questions/visual-novel-style-dialogues/msg636668000/#msg636668000
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/beginners-technical-questions/implementing-character-busts-during-dialogue/

1. When the fonts were imported, only one appeared on the font file list; the rest had to be removed and reimported

I was not able to reproduce this with a random project.
Please provide more information:
- which fonts were present in the old project
- which font files and font items appear in the upgraded project
- which files appear in the Fonts folder.

2. Moving fonts into the Fonts\ folder causes all kinds of problems. It would be nice if the editor detected them and asked to see if you wanted to import them. This should be true for anything automatically added to the game that AGS recognized as valid format

Note that you can import from Fonts folder as well, editor is supposed to allow that.

About automated suggestion - please open a feature suggestion in github tracker.
There are a number of issues to discuss there. For instance, in regards to fonts, as fonts are separated into font files / fonts now, there's no direct match between a font file and a font. AGS can import font files, but will need some instruction about whether to create font items from them.

Logically some things could not be done, such as the characteristic text inside the box (which I could replicate, but it is impossible for me to manage conversations and mouse clicks due to engine limitations).

All of this can be done in AGS engine. If you would explain in detail how things are supposed to work we might be able to tell how it may be managed in AGS.

I am speaking of a TRA file in my current compiled game with the latest version of AGS. Someone told me how to get a script of the whole game, but I can't find the post right now. Maybe it wasn't the tra file but a different file.

Have you tried checking the TRS file of the same name? I just do not understand the reason why are you looking into TRA. TRS file is the translation source. TRA file is the compiled translation.

When you speak of "whole script", are you referring to the acting script by a chance? There's a command that can create one in File menu.

I do know the keyword I am looking for. Is there a way to a run text search over all the files without going one room at a time?

I think AGS can search in all scripts including room scripts if you go to any script, do Edit -> Find All and select "Look Into: Current Project".
If that does not work, most file managers can search through files, Windows File Explorer can do that if you ask it to search the file contents AFAIK.

In that past, I was able to use that tra file and be able to view it and able to search it.  This replaced the "filedump" that was in the very old version.  I need to find some speech in the game and I don't want to have to go through tons of rooms. 

From what I know, very old versions of AGS have kept the translation text as-is, but later versions, starting from 2.72 or so, encrypt the text in order to avoid players reading it to get hints.

Are you speaking of a TRA file that you compile right now in the project you are working on, or are you speaking of a TRA file coming from some old game to which you no longer have a source?

On another hand, do you know what key words the speech contains? If so you could just run a text search over all the script files and room files in the project.

This task is best separated into parts:
1. Data, how the necessary animation sections and other properties are organized within existing items (views, loops etc).
2. Engine behavior, how the engine runs these animations.
3. Editor interface.


For example, there may be two options for making start/stop animations.

One is to define a entry and exit sections within a loop, where middle section will be treated as looping.
This, however, may be inconsistent if used with Animate command, because animation may be stopped instantly by a script command, and it won't be proper to play an ending sequence after it ordered to stop. So while entry segment might work with Animate command, the exit segment won't.
OTOH, I suppose that having entry segment in the loop may be useful for regular Animate command too. Alternatively, we might introduce new parameter to Animate that tells which part to play: entry, middle or exit.

Another option is to have a new dedicated loop for each enter/exist segment. The downside would be too many loops to set, as you need that for each walking direction, so for a single walking dir you'll have 3 loops, for 4 directions - 12 loops, and 24 loops in case of 8 directions. Or maybe that's not a big deal. I'm not an animator, so cannot tell.

The upside of this second approach is perhaps that it's more consistent with idea of "animation transition".
If we also have transitions between walk directions (for turning), these would be dedicated loops, and then the whole system is represented by loops with assigned roles (rather than parts of loops).


EDIT:
I remember that in sound design the starting/ending parts of the track are called "Roll In" and "Roll Out". Do you use similar terms in animation?


EDIT 2:
Speaking of workarounds, AGS 4 script has a new Pathfinder and MotionPath commands that let you calculate the walking path and use it for scripting custom walking.

Translation source is called TRS, these files are in your project's root folder. TRA is a compiled translation prepared for the engine, which you should not read.

There is a folder called Compiled/Data, where editor puts all the game data, before copying further into Compiled/Windows and so on. If there are any old files, they will still be copied to Compiled/Windows. Double check that old translation files are not in Compiled/Data. OTOH you may simply delete whole Compiled folder and do Rebuild All in the Editor.

Not the engine by itself, but there's a script module that does this:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/modules-plugins-tools/module-fancy-0-1-0/

Thanks so much for adding XOffset and YOffset properties for the View Frames. It's really useful for me

Yes, these were asked for very long ago, and it appeared that AGS already have them for a long time but they were unused in the program, so I just wired them up.

Of course there's still no convenient way to set them up visually in the editor (rather than typing by hand for every frame). A View editor redesign is something that has to be done in the future.

Anyway, the shaders feature is now a part of AGS 4 since Alpha 22 update:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?msg=636683993

[Editor:]

Updated to Alpha 22
(Please use download links in the first post)

This update contains all the new features and fixes from 3.6.2 release and 3.6.2 Patch 1 (except ones related to backwards compatibility).

Own changes:

Editor:
- Editor requires .NET Framework 4.7 to run.
- In General Settings added "GUI common controls handle only left mouse button" option that lets prevent RMB from activating gui controls, except those that have separate actions for left and right mouse buttons.
- Added XOffset and YOffset properties for the View Frames.
- Redesigned Color Finder panel, now it lets to specify alpha color component, and convert between several different color representations.
- Fixed error occuring when creating a new Font.
- Fixed error occuring when renaming a room.

Script API:
- Added ShaderProgram and ShaderInstance structs, meant for the custom shaders support.
- Added Character.Shader, GUI.Shader, GUIControl.Shader, Object.Shader, Overlay.Shader, Camera.Shader, Viewport.Shader, Mouse.CursorShader, Screen.Shader.
- Added Button.GraphicFlip property.
- Added GUIControl.Rotation.
- Added GUIControl.ScaleX and ScaleY properties, GUIControl.SetScale() function.
- ViewFrame.Flipped property is now settable and returns eFlipDirection instead of bool.
- ViewFrame.Speed property is now settable.
- Added ViewFrame.XOffset and YOffset properties.

Engine:
- Support custom shaders, initialized through script API. Shaders are loaded and compiled from GLSL (for OpenGL) or HLSL (for Direct3D) shader scripts, and may be attached to game objects, camera, or the whole game view. Shaders may have user-defined constants, and have up to 3 secondary textures on input.
- Support compressing game saves using Deflate algorithm. Added config option "compress_saves" in "misc" section, disabled by default.
- Always compress a screenshot in game save using Deflate algorithm.
- Consistent GUI translation: the values of textual properties will never be automatically translated on assignment or reading them, only the text displayed on screen will be translated.
- Fixed error occuring when either a screenshot is made, or Crossfade or Dissolve room transition is run.
- Fixed error which had a chance to occur when ordering a character to walk after recently restoring a save.
- Fixed character not making the first animation step before starting a move.


The shader support is a new big feature, and difficult to explain in few words, so I suggest reading more thorough explanation in the dedicated forum thread here:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/engine-development/experiment-ags-4-custom-shaders-support/
This will be added to the AGS 4 manual eventually.

I have a small request, can someone download the demo game (linked in this thread's first post), enable "background" shader ("Bg" button), and tell how it looks like?

You should be seeing "ripple" effect, but does it look like smooth waves, or plain circles expanding from the center?

It worked well for me in the past, but when I test this now, I have a different result. I am in doubts whether there's something wrong with the game which I did not notice earlier, or something wrong with my video card (I had suspicions that it might be malfunctioning lately).

EDIT: okay, got this fixed by rebooting PC. No idea what caused this, either a random glitch or some other software put gfx card into a wrong state... :/

The InventoryItem* parameter in this function is not the used item that player has in "hand", but the item which is being clicked on, so it's other way around.

For checking which item is being used use player.ActiveInventory instead:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/Character.html#characteractiveinventory

Code: ags

function iVetev_UseInv(InventoryItem *theItem, CursorMode mode)
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory == iGumicka)

Code: ags

function iGumicka_UseInv(InventoryItem *theItem, CursorMode mode)
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory == iVetev)

On another hand, when you combine items in any order, I may suggest to move the code into a separate function and call from both, in order to reduce code duplication. For example:

Code: ags

function Combine_iGumicka_iVetev()
{
  player.Say("I conennected a gumicka and a vetev. Now I have a prak.");
  player.InventoryQuantity[iVetev.ID]--;
  player.InventoryQuantity[iGumicka.ID]--;
  player.AddInventory(iPrak);
}

function iVetev_UseInv(InventoryItem *theItem, CursorMode mode)
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory == iGumicka)
  {
    Combine_iGumicka_iVetev();
  }
  else
  {
    player.Say("This cannot be combined.");
  }
}

function iGumicka_UseInv(InventoryItem *theItem, CursorMode mode)
{
  if (player.ActiveInventory == iVetev)
  {
    Combine_iGumicka_iVetev();
  }
  else
  {
    player.Say("This cannot be combined.");
  }
}

3.6.2 Patch 1 is released with all the accumulated fixes so far:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-engine-editor-releases/ags-3-6-2-patch-1/

[Download AGS 3.6.2 Patch 1 installer]

AGS 3.6.2 - Patch 1

Full release number: 3.6.2.11

Download AGS 3.6.2 Patch 1 installer

Download AGS 3.6.2 Patch 1 as a .zip archive

For Editor

Spoiler

VC 2015-2022 redistributable needed for AGS Editor on Windows

Download Color Themes for the Editor

[close]

For Android

Spoiler

AGS Player, suitable for running any compatible AGS game

NOTE: the Editor now includes Android build component letting you prepare your own games for Android

[close]

For Engine/Editor developers

Spoiler

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

[close]

Released: 15th June 2025

Previous stable version: AGS 3.6.1 P11 forum thread


This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v.Drake (fixes)
- Crimson Wizard
- edmundito (fixes)
- eri0o
- homelightgames (scalable images for the wizard dialogs)
- rofl0r (compatibility fixes for old games)
- Walter Agazzi (compatibility fixes for old games)


Summary

3.6.2 is planned to be a second update to 3.6, focusing mostly on convenience of existing Editor and Engine features, and expanding existing script commands. For a quick mention, the noteable changes are:
- you may create object event functions in any script of your choosing (except room events);
- a support for loading saves from older versions of the game;
- dynamic arrays have Length pseudo-attribute, letting you to read their length in script;
- dialog events (in "on_event") may let writing custom dialog handling in script easier.
But there's more.

As usual, please refer to "Upgrading to AGS 3.6.2" topic in the manual for further information on most outstanding changes in this version:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/UpgradeTo362.html

The full changelog follows.


Changes in the Patch 1:

Editor:
- On failed new font import do not replace the font with font 0 in preview, as that's confuses users and hides import errors.
- Fixed an unhandled exception which occured on Text Parser panel when user pressed Enter while no item is selected.

Engine:
- Try to detect incorrect argument types in string formatting functions such as String.Format, in attempt to avoid crashes when a '%s' format is used (this is still not 100% secure though).
- Do not quit with error if a wrong GUI type is assigned as a "TextWindow GUI", display default message box instead and log a warning.
- Fixed a crash occuring when reading Character.DestinationX/Y properties while the character is turning on spot after a call to FaceDirection.
- Fixed a crash occuring when SpeechView is assigned a view that has no loops.
- Fixed Lucas-Arts speech positioning mistake occuring, for example, when there's a big transparent GUI covering whole screen.
- Fixed dialog options with no text, they were displayed and could be selected by player, which should not be happening.
- Fixed Character.PlaceOnWalkableArea() and Room.NearestWalkableArea() returning wrong results if Room's mask resolution is not 1:1.
- Fixed Direct3D and OpenGL renderers displaying sprites with occasional "magenta" pixels when "Smooth scaled sprites" setting is enabled but graphic filter is set to "Nearest-neighbour".

Compatibility:
- Support detecting and loading game data from Linux game ports where it's called "agsgame.dat", and is created using an older version of the third-party "agspack" utility.
- Disable smooth walk transition in pre-3.6.1 games, as apparently this breaks logic in some of them where precise walking coordinates and/or timing is required by scripts.
- Fixed misaligned text centering on buttons in pre-3.6.0 games.



What is new in 3.6.2

Common:
- Event handler function are now allowed to be located in any script module.
- New naming rule for the voice clips: full char name, followed by a number, separated by a dot, e.g. "RogerTheGreat.1234.ogg". The old rule may be enabled again by a switch in "Backwards Compatibility" settings.

Editor:
- In "Start New Game Wizard" game template selection now displays template's description right in the dialog.
- "Game statistics" now have Ctrl + F2 shortcut instead of F2.
- F2 can be used for starting editing names of items in the Project Tree (ones that support that) and folders in the Sprite Manager.
- Added "Game Speed" property in General Settings.
- Added "Use old-style voice clip naming rule" property in General Settings, it lets to select whether the game should expect old-style voice clip filenames (4-letter char name followed by number) or the new one (full char name, followed by a number, separated by a dot).
- In General Settings renamed "Override built-in inventory window click handling" option to the older variant "Handle inventory window clicks in script" (because it's easier to understand).
- GUI selection in settings is now done using drop-down lists which list all eligible GUI types instead of having user to type GUI number. The setting will be automatically fixed if a GUI is removed.
- Property Grid now displays Custom Properties right in the main properties list for each item that supports them.
- Added "WrapText", "TextPaddingHorizontal", "TextPaddingVertical" properties to GUI Button.
- GUI Labels can select full range of Alignment values in their TextAlignment property.
- Added "TurnWhenFacing" property to Characters.
- Textual GUI controls can now select "Null Font" as their font: this will prevent any text to be drawn even if one is assigned, and make it have zero size (when it matters).
- Property Grid and Room's navigation bar now display object's description along with the script name on the drop-down list labels.
- "Events" tab on the Properties Grid now has "ScriptModule" selection, which lets define in which module should the related script functions be generated and looked for. The GUI Controls use a ScriptModule set in their parent GUI, and Room events always has a fixed room script selected.
- Added "Open Recent" submenu in the File menu.
- Sync script editor's commands in Edit menu with the context menu.
- Added "Toggle Line Comment" command to Edit menu for scripts.
- More panes in the Editor are DPI-aware (rescale well with the system font scaling).
- Editor tabs now display icons indicating their contents (may be disabled in Editor Preferences).
- Room panel tabs now display room names.
- Editor will now remember certain window states: "Sprite selector" window and splitter position, splitter position in "Sprite manager".
- Support reordering folders in Project Explorer with drag & drop.
- Support importing plain script files: ash, asc or both, - besides script modules (*.scm).
- On "Color Finder" pane also display actual RGB values that the engine will use. They may be different from requested RGB, because historically engine limits drawing color's RGB precision to 16-bit.
- Font's "SourceFilename" and "Font Size" properties now have buttons that let import another font file, or reimport same font with different size respectively, instead of clicking on a button on the preview window.
- Added a readonly "ProjectFilename" property to Fonts, which displays their in-project file name.
- Global Variables panel now allows to declare arrays.
- Added "Controls transparency" slider to GUI edit pane.
- Copy, paste and delete commands now apply to all the selected GUI controls in GUI editor.
- When pasting a copied GUI control, Locked property of a new control will be turned off.
- Support editing group properties for selected GUI controls.
- Added a multiline Text edit window for Button and Label controls, that may be called by Ctrl+E, from context menu, or by pressing "..." button of the Text property in the Properties grid.
- Support reordering folders in Sprite Manager with drag & drop.
- Added "Replace source paths for sprites..." context menu command in Sprite Manager. This command allows to batch-replace parent folder for all sprite source paths, in case you moved original files from one folder to another.
- Added "Palette index" selection for sprite's import transparency option.
- Support importing 32-bit BMP files of extended formats (this support is formal at the moment, and does not guarantee that any of the extended data will be interpreted).
- Support importing 1-bit (monochrome) and 4-bit images as sprites, room backgrounds and masks (converted to 8-bit).
- Do not alter or clamp palette for 8-bit sprites imported in a 16/32-bit game.
- Support importing indexed images which palettes contain translucent alpha as sprites with alpha.
- Support importing indexed PNGs as room backgrounds and masks.
- Added "Change Room Number" context menu command for the Rooms in Project Explorer.
- When the room background size changes, reset room edges to defaults.
- Removed obsolete "Copy walkable area mask to regions" command from the Room editor.
- Improved scrolling of drop-down lists in the Room's navigation bar: made scroll buttons larger, and support mouse wheel.
- In Room Editor, during any area drawing mode Ctrl + LMB now works as area picker regardless of the currently selected tool.
- Added "Replace source paths for audio clips..." context menu command for the Audio node. This command allows to batch-replace parent folder for all clips' source paths, in case you moved original files from one folder to another.
- Don't restrict compiling a voice-based lipsync if game has a Lucas-Arts style speech.
- Do not delete previously built game exe from Compiled/Windows folder when testing a game from the editor.
- Editor will now report any missing script functions that are assigned to events, but not present in script, as warnings when compiling the game.
- Editor will now report any script functions that *look like* event functions, but not assigned to corresponding events, as warnings when compiling the game.
- Editor will interrupt "Check for updates" process if it is taking too long with no progress.
- Added "/maketemplate" command-line option that tells Editor to run, make template out of the said game, and quit.
- Fixed Project Explorer refreshing when user changes names or descriptions of room objects.
- Fixed importing indexed PNG as a sprite, previously Editor would mistakenly treat the source image as 32-bit.
- Fixed importing GIFs with "palette 0 / N" transparency option would refer a palette color from each individual frame's palette rather than the original GIF palette, which could lead to wrong colors used as transparents.
- Fixed importing 8-bit BMP sprites with no "Remap palette" and "Leave As Is" as a transparency option would still remap palette index 0 to the first found palette entry with Alpha 0, even if that's a filler entry not used by the image.
- Fixed exporting room backgrounds was always writing a 32-bit image rather than using actual background's color depth.
- Fixed Autocomplete failing in case of UNIX line endings in script file.
- Fixed Autocomplete not giving correct results in case of a long chained access, i.e. something like "var

• .member.member".

- Fixed Autocomplete giving wrong list of choices for wrong syntax cases like: indexed access of a type and non-array struct variable, member access of a static array.
 - Fixed Button getting resized to the image's size when user cancels different sprite assignment.
 - Fixed "Color Finder" and color properties were mapping a color number to RGB values with accuracy mistakes, resulting in slightly different values than the engine would use.
 - Fixed Font preview could crash the Editor with out of memory error in case of a very big font.
 - Fixed Editor refusing to open a project if one or more of the sections are missing in the file.
 - Fixed an unhandled exception occuring when rebuilding rooms if any script's header is missing.
 - Fixed a "unterminated string" error in Dialogs was not pointing to the actual error location.
 - Fixed double warning message when trying to close the Editor while a game test is running.
 - Fixed Editor may display a "save project" confirmation when run with "/compile" command-line parameter.

Scripting:
 - Dynamic arrays now have Length readonly property that returns their number of elements.
 - Support zero-length dynamic arrays. This may be useful if you need to have a dynamic array with no elements, but don't want to bother about checking a null pointer.

Script API:
 - Added eNullFont constant that lets assign or pass a "null font" to any property or function parameter which expects a font's ID. This "null font" will simply make any text not drawn and have no actual measurements (size, spacing, etc).
 - Added global events: eEventDialogStart, eEventDialogStop, eEventDialogRun, eEventDialogOptionsOpen, eEventDialogOptionsClose (these are handled in "on_event").
 - Events eEventGUIMouseDown and eEventGUIMouseUp now get additional parameters: mouse button, mouse x and y positions (relative to the exact GUI).
 - Expanded "on_mouse_click" callback, now supports two more parameters: click x,y coordinates.
 - Added RestoredSaveInfo struct which contains information about game save's contents,
 - Support "validate_restored_save" callback, which lets user to validate restored saves with mismatching data and request cancellation or continuation of restoring this save.
 - Added Button.WrapText, TextPaddingHorizontal, TextPaddingVertical.
 - Added Character.Following property that returns another Character that this one follows after.
 - Added Character.TurnWhenFacing property.
 - Added Character.MoveStraight() complementing WalkStraight().
 - Added DateTime.CreateFromDate() and CreateFromRawTime().
 - Added static Dialog.CurrentDialog property and non-static ExecutedOption and AreOptionsDisplayed properties.
 - Added static Dialog.Stop() function, a OO-style alias to StopDialog().
 - Added RenderLayer enum, and optional "layers" parameter to DynamicSprite.CreateFromScreenShot(), that tells which of the game's render layers to capture when making a screenshot.
 - Added File.Copy() and File.Rename().
 - Added FileSortStyle and SortDirection enum, and File.GetFiles() function that returns a dynamic array of filenames found using certain pattern, and optionally sorted by name or time, in ascending or descending order.
 - Added File.GetFileTime() that returns file's modification time.
 - Added File.ReadFloat(), WriteFloat(), ReadRawFloat(), WriteRawFloat(), ReadRawBytes() and WriteRawBytes().
 - Added Game.InBlockingWait property, that tells whether game is waiting for any blocking action or a Wait* call to complete.
 - Added SaveGameSortStyle enum and Game.GetSaveSlots() function that returns a dynamic array of save slot indexes, optionally sorted in certain way.
 - Added Game.GetSaveSlotTime() that returns a time this save slot was last written.
 - Added Game.ScanSaveSlots() that scans a range of game saves and tests them for compatibility, using "validate_restored_save" too if it's present in user script.
  This action is not run immediately, but is scheduled to be executed after current script ends. It reports of scanning completion by sending eEventSavesScanComplete event.
 - Label.TextAlignment has now type Alignment, rather than HorizontalAlignment, and has full alignment range (both horizontal and vertical).
 - Added optional "fileSortStyle" and "sortDirection" parameters to ListBox.FillDirList().
 - Added optional save slot range (min/max), saveSortStyle and sortDirection parameters to ListBox.FillSaveGameList(). This lets to define the exact range of saves it should fill, and order them in desired way.
 - Added ListBox.FillSaveGameSlots(), which initializes a list of saves from a dynamic array of save slot indexes.
 - Added Object.DestinationX and DestinationY properties, complementing ones in Character.
 - Added Overlay.SetPosition() and SetSize() functions for convenience.
 - Added Room.BackgroundCount readonly property.
 - Added Room.NearestWalkableArea() that returns the nearest found point on a walkable area.
 - Added GetWalkBehindBase() function, complementing SetWalkBehindBase().
 - Added Speech.SpeakingCharacter that returns currently speaking character (for blocking speech).
 - Added GetTimerPos() that returns timer's position (remaining time), in ticks.
 - Added CopySaveSlot() and MoveSaveSlot(), which moves existing save to another slot.
 - Added optional save slot range (min/max) parameters to RestoreGameDialog() and SaveGameDialog().
 - Added optional "sprite" parameter to SaveGameSlot(), that lets to pass a number of an arbitrary sprite to write into this save instead of a standard "screenshot".
 - Added optional "width", "height" and "layer" parameters to SaveScreenShot().
  SaveScreenShot() now accepts paths containing standard file tokens ($SAVEGAMEDIR$ etc).
 - Added SendEvent() function that allows to trigger "on_event" function calls in script. Special event value eEventUserEvent may be used as a base index for user-defined events.
 - Added System.DisplayFPS property that toggles FPS counter (a replacement to Debug(4, 1)).
 - Added System.GetEngineInteger() and System.GetEngineString() for returning diagnostic information about engine's runtime state. Possible arguments are defined by EngineValueID enum.
 - Added new game-wide option OPT_SAVEGAMESCREENSHOTLAYER that lets to define which of the game's render layers will be captured when making a standard screenshot for the save game.
 - Add SaveComponentSelection enum and game option OPT_SAVECOMPONENTSIGNORE, which lets to skip certain components when saving or restoring a game. This has dual purpose: reduce number of things in game that may break older saves by simply not having them in a save, and also reducing the size of game saves on disk (e.g. in case of dynamic sprites). Note that all things that were not restored from the save will retain their *current state*.
 - Fixed some script functions in AGS API were declared with "int" return value, while they are supposed to be "void".

Engine:
 - Updated to SDL 2.30.11 and SDL_Sound 2.0.4.
 - Engine now potentially supports reading saves made in older game versions with different content, so long as these saves have *less* data in any given type (i.e. less Characters, or less controls on a certain GUI, or less variables in script, and so forth). This feature is enabled by having a special "validate_restored_save" function anywhere in the game script, that accepts an argument of type RestoredSaveInfo. RestoredSaveInfo  contains various information about the restored save, and "Cancel" property, that must be explicitly set to "false" in script in order to allow to restore such save.
 - Engine supports returning to previously saved rooms which have less script data.
  It's important to remember though that it does no validation of restored room state on its own.
 - Dropped support for pre-3.5.0 game saves.
 - Increased the cap of simultaneously loaded scripts to 1024 (this includes all regular script modules, a single active dialog script, and a single active room script).
 - Engine no longer quits with error in case a script function assigned to a Room event is missing. Logs warnings about missing script functions assigned to any events.
 - Character.FollowCharacter() can now have a distance parameter up to 32766 (was limited to 255).
 - Ensure that Character.Speaking returns true when a speech is playing even if the character has no speech view.
 - Character.PlaceOnWalkableArea() now does a 1-pixel step scan, ensuring walkable area will be found regardless of how small it is. Optimized the search algorithm to keep it fast enough even in very large rooms.
 - Support voice-based lipsync (Pamela, Papagayo) with Lucas-Arts style speech.
 - DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile() may now load 1-bit and 4-bit bitmaps, converting to 8-bit.
 - Do not alter or clamp palette for 8-bit sprites loaded into a 16/32-bit game at runtime.
 - Assigning InventoryItem.Graphic will no longer reassign CursorGraphic too even if they were identical previously.
 - Calling DeleteSaveSlot() on a slot within 0-50 range will no longer secretly move a save with the topmost number (within the same range) to fill the emptied slot. If you still like to recreate this behavior, then use MoveSaveSlot() command.
 - Support calling StopDialog() inside any regular script and dialog script, and also while dialog options are displayed. That will schedule dialog's stop to be performed after current script finishes.
 - Removed arbitrary limit of 2k bytes for the result of String.Format().
 - Engine will no longer quit with error if any object is assigned a non-existing sprite, but continue, using a sprite 0 as a placeholder instead.
 - Ensure that the objects with identical z-order (baseline) always keep same relative sort order when being drawn (note: engine does not guarantee a predefined order, only a persistent one).
 - Implemented video buffering on a separate thread. Allow to drop late video frames.
 - When mouse is locked in window, confine its position to the game viewport; exclude black border.
 - Added "display" config option to "graphics" section. This is a 1-based display index, where 0 means "use default display".
 - Added new accessibility config settings in "access" section: "speechskip", "textskip", "textreadspeed". These let player to override game's skipping style for character speech and text messages, and text reading speed parameter that controls speech timing.
 - Added "max_save" config option in "override" section: this lets to enforce an arbitrary number of saves displayed in a standard save/restore dialogs in game.
 - Added "--display" command-line argument that lets choose which display to open game window on.
 - Added "--no-plugins" command-line argument that denies loading any plugins; also added respective config option "noplugins" in "override" section.
 - Fixed Software renderer being unable to restore a windowed mode on certain monitors, when switching from a real fullscreen mode.
 - Fixed character may get stuck inside a non-walkable area after Character.WalkStraight().
 - Fixed character may rarely finish walking on a non-walkable pixel.
 - Fixed calling Character.StopMoving() after AddWaypoint() succeeded a regular Walk() call with eWalkableAreas parameter will wrongfully teleport the character to the nearest walkable area, even though AddWaypoint is supposed to ignore walkable areas.
 - Fixed a number of region or hotspot's "Stand on hotspot" events may unexpectedly run after a blocking character's walk, even if character is no longer standing on that region/hotspot.
 - Fixed Lucas-Arts style character speech displaying offscreen if character is standing below the bottom of a room viewport.
 - Fixed calling Dialog.Start() inside a dialog script would create a nested "dialog state", which could eventually lead to internal mistakes and program stack overflow. Dialog.Start() will now schedule a proper dialog topic switch, equivalent to "goto-dialog" command.
 - Fixed displaying room masks with Debug command in legacy "upscale" mode.
 - Fixed a potential lockup that may occur when the engine is run from the editor, and is told to stop at a breakpoint.
 - Fixed 48khz OGG clips may have extra silence added to them in the end, causing "hickups" when the sound playback is looped.

Engine Plugin API:
 - Updated few callback and function prototypes in order to make them 64-bit compatible (allow pass and receive pointers). This includes AGS_EngineOnEvent for AGSE_TRANSLATETEXT and render stage events, and CallGameScriptFunction which now lets pass a const char* argument.
 - Added IAGSEngine.CreateDynamicArray(), which lets plugins to create dynamic arrays.
 - Added IAGSEngine.GetDynamicArrayLength() and IAGSEngine.GetDynamicArraySize(), which tell the passed array object's number of elements, and total size in bytes respectively.
 - Added IAGSEngine.Log(), which lets plugins to print using engine's log system.

Compatibility:
 - Fixed loading of games made in AGS 2.55-56 which include plugins.
 - Fixed loading of rare games made with AGS 2.5 or higher, which contained deprecated "room animations" (animations themselves are currently not functional).
 - Fixed old rooms with rare x3 resolution not displaying correctly.
 - Fixed old pathfinder imprecision affecting few pre-3.0 games.
 - Allow pre-2.7 games to have RestartGame() command be followed and overridden by a NewRoom().
  This is necessary for some older games to be able to proceed.

Windows:
 - Windows version of AGS is now built with MSVS 2019 and higher.

WinSetup:
 - Redesigned winsetup into a tabbed dialog.
 - Added "Reset To Defaults" button that resets all options to values from the game's default config file.
 - Added "Display" selection, allows to select which display to open the game window on.
 - Added "Accessibility" settings for skipping speech and text messages, for text reading speed.
 - In "disabled" section of config "access_skipstyle" setting lets disable all options in setup related to the speech and text skipping.

What is the size of the room background? Room size is also mentioned in its properties (Width and Height).

EDIT: also, this is posted in a wrong forum section, should perhaps be moved to
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/beginners-technical-questions/

It would be nice if there was some way to connect something from audio output to the shader input for fun music synced effects

Changes in shaders is done by setting constants. What remains is reading audio. I'd just generate a separate file with instructions, similar to how voice-based lipsync is done, read that file and apply changes to shaders using timestamps.

room is 1280x800.

I meant the "Mask Resolution", that's a setting that tells a ratio between room background and walkable mask, it may be seen in room properties.
If it's too high (like 1:4) then the moving characters or objects may seemingly "jump" between coordinates (idk if it's your case, I suppose you would have other issues with that too if that were the case.)


Regarding your DrawingSurface code, you did not call surface.Release() prior to Wait. Unless you call Release, the surface will not be updated, it works like "Submit changes". In principle, working with DrawingSurface inside the loop would be like:

> loop
  - get drawing surface
  - draw stuff
  - release surface
  - wait(1)
<

I've added a link to the manual near the top of the Create navbar menu, and reworked the Help & Support page to put the manual front and centre.

What about also adding the "AGS Manual" button to the forums topbar? There's a link to AGS Wiki already, but not to the manual.