Messages

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG

I KNEW!

>carefully check out tent I

+1.

OH NOW LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE GONE AND DONE, MY BEST HEAVY TROOPER IS DEEEAAAAD!!!

I remember role-playing X-COM, when in case of losing a solder I was going berserk and ordered my troops to throw all the explosive stuff at the alien murderer.
... and also that feeling when one soldier once saved other's life by shooting an enemy through two screens and 3 house windows.   

I have a rough shell of the game so far so I would like to add a title screen and menu when you first run the game.

My problem is that I literally have no idea where to start besides making a new Room (importing the Title screen image as the background) and attempting to disable the main game Guis so they are not visible.

Few tips:
1. Use Room number > 300. This room won't save it's state and everything will reset to starting position if player re-visits Main Menu.
2. Set Room property "ShowPlayerCharacter" to false (where applicable), since you probably won't want your player character appear on the screen with menu options (or would you? in which case don't ).
3. You may make your main menu with Gui, indeed. But also you may make it literally of anything else: room objects, even characters.
Check this recently released game, for example, it has main menu made of 3 sheeps standing on hill. One sheep is "New game", another "Load" and third is "Quit":
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46971.0
Actually I think most AGS games I saw used text drawn on room background or on objects to make main menu, rather than gui.

The end? Don't be silly! Forever Friday part 4 comes out December 1st. And then parts 5 and 6 will come out next. You still have a few years of Barn Runner ahead of you. 

Time to call it Barn Jordan.

[Our formerly sock-puppet playing cat is growing up]

Our formerly sock-puppet playing cat is growing up

Wait... now I see why she wanted to release The Sheep Quest 15th October .

Now, will they drop astronauts from ISS like that?

I finished this. I must say I really love how the game ended (regardless of all the tragic events behind it). Somehow I thought it should end that way.

Spoiler

The Get Very Important Artifact and Make Big Boom Happen concept makes me cringe.

[close]

However, the Percy's story is something I didn't like, and felt quite dissapointed about.

Spoiler

I must admit I don't like mystics much. Spiritual powers of unknown nature and reason - that sort of thing. It felt really far-fetched.
Besides, I always tend to think of Ben Jordan series as of modern fairy tale. It had some unexplanable events (a teenager being allowed to crime scene in BJ1, etc, you all know them), but it was pretty OK for me, and to be honest, I'd prefer it stayed as it is. Trying to get more realism and explanation didn't work here well, in my opinion.

[close]

Regarding the graphics. I found the artist's work in BJ series quite bold. Not trying to match perfect lines, shades, perspective, and yet making it look consistent and overall plausible and pleasurable.
Well, okay, there's was just one moment it played a bad joke with me .

Spoiler

When I came to the old woman's house in Romanian town for the first time, I somehow thought the the outer wall is actually the yard pavement. Perhaps because the house bottom was lined with the wall's top, and lack of lighting/shading. When Arthur Jordan dissapeared behind it, I felt dizzy

[close]

Thanks for the game.

After several years of production

..what??? 

I thought it was a joke, but cat mentioned she was working on this since 2007 in PM.
Well, what can I say. It's nice to finish the old works.

After several years of production

..what??? 

[geork]

Binsk, when someone asks a question like you did, it is clearly visible that a person just started to learn the engine. It's OK, but here's one advice I believe I should give: try to get a picture of how the AGS works and what things it may do first; perhaps do some tutorials, or - even better - test games.
The problem is that the simple and quick answer on your main question here won't give you enough information and therefore won't help you, while the detailed answer will make you too confused... and also won't help you .
Such things are learnt step by step. Perhaps you will find answers on those and many other questions while doing that.
It is also a good idea to tell how much knowledge you have about engine. Here I made certain assumptions - but they could be incorrect (in which case I apologize).

Thing is, there are hungreds of ways to do what you asked. Someone may tell you one way, but later you may find it's not precisely what you wanted. It may help to write down a plan, some kind of design document, where you describe how exactly do you want your game to look and behave during "driving sequence" (or anything else you want to make).

Regarding other questions - in addition to what geork said I'll give few links to the AGS Wiki (also refer to your manual!):
Setting player character:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/?title=Character_functions_and_properties#Character.SetAsPlayer
Changing view:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/?title=Character_functions_and_properties#Character.ChangeView
Text parser:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/?title=Other_features_(manual)#The_text_parser

but I like your work around idea of just formatting another string when I need it and calling that instead of raw text.  It's the kind of quick and dirty fix that appeals to me

Dirty fix  why do you think it is a fix? I see it as a common thing to do.
On other hand you could make a function that takes string with formatting characters and a monkey_05_06's Vector I've already mentioned before (which is basically a string which holds description of random variables inside):
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=37232.0

On a similar note, though, the thought had crossed my mind that I might want to add voice acting, but I don't think I'll be able to use the same commands.  i.e.

Code: ags

 cVillain.Talk ("&12 You'll never get your kittens back.  Never!"); 

wouldn't work for the same reasons (I haven't tested it, but it seems &12 functions kind of like %d in that it isn't actually part of the string).

I think there's huge misunderstanding. &12 IS a part of the string (as well as formatting characters like "%d" ARE part of the string). It is just that they are replaced inside Say command. That means that you can make a String variable and send it via 100 functions to Say command, like:

Code: ags

function SaySomething(String line)
{
   player.Say(line);
}

function OnSomeEvent()
{
   String s = "&12 Bla bla bla";
   SaySomething(s);
}

Similarly you may pass string with "%d" and other special characters, and the string will keep them all the way around.

Their replacement with variables - that what is done in String.Format, and implemented in exactly C++ as you say, although the implementation details aren't very related to this problem. You may make your own formatting function, eitehr with C++ formatting rules or your own rules, and replace special characters yourself.
The only problem here is to make the formatting function take any number of parameters of any types. AGS doesn't provide means for doing this, so if you want you'll have to find a workaround. Monkey's Stack (mentioned above) is one possible workaround.

amateurhour, I don't mean to be rude, but it looks like you don't try to understand what you are doing.

First of all, what code did you combine? I did not give you any code, just tried to explain some things in Khris's code.
Your last line makes no sense there

Code: ags

lblAction.Text = action.Append(Game.GetLocationName(mx, my));

you already have exactly same line inside "if" section. Just remove the one in the end of function, and it will probably work fine.

In C++ it is done with "..." in parameter list, which means "any number of parameters of unknown types".
AGS can't do that. Also AGS does not have a way to translate unknown number of parameters to formatted string.

There are perhaps ways make your own string formatting utilities, using monkey_05_06's vector module, for example, to pass random number of values. But the question is: do you really must to pass all that params to your function?

Cannot you just prepare formatted string beforehand, and pass it?
That is instead:

Code: ags

 cVillain.Talk ("I'm going to take all %d of your precious kittens.", kitten_count); 

do

Code: ags

String s = String.Format("I'm going to take all %d of your precious kittens.", kitten_count);
cVillain.Talk (s); 

E: Ahaha, actually AGS CAN do that:

Code: ags

function aa(int x, ...)

Dunno how that will work though. And I don't see a way to GET those params when in the function.

Is Button's Click Action is set to "RunScript"?


BTW you don't need {} after "else" since you only have one action there, similar to the one under "if". That's not a mistake, just small note.

You are writing if/else block totally wrong.

Syntax is:

Code: ags

if ( condition )
{
   actions
}
else
{
   actions
}

Or, alternatively

Code: ags

if ( condition ) {
   actions
} else {
   actions
}

If you have only one line in "actions" you may remove brackets:

Code: ags

if ( condition ) <---- here is NO ';' !!!
   one action;   <---- here is though
else
   one action;

The ';' operator is the "end of statement".

I re-read previous posts and I now see I could misread something and misunderstand the problem.

I never paid much attention to this (= didn't care) before but I checked right now and I see that AGS Editor runs debug only in window.
Since your laptop has max 768 resolution height and your game is 1024x768, that would mean that it probably won't be running game in window (quite opposite to what I said earlier about fullscreen), but it will run it fullscreen.

There may be something that prevents running game in fullscreen under debug, and to be honest I do not know what could be the reason. Maybe someone else knows?


E: To think of it the reason behind this is that it may be problematic to run game fullscreen under debugger, switching between editor and game windows etc. Running debug fullscreen is forbidden in AGS, which means you won't be able to run 1024x768 game with debugger on your laptop.

How bad that may be? Depends on how do you want to test your game process. Debugger does not display game variable values anyway, it only allows to do step by step execution to see how your game processes script. So, probably, it is not that critical to develop without one.

I do not think the large size of monitor in general may have any negative consequences.
The only problem I know is when you run any program not compatible with widescreen on a widescreen monitor and get the image stretched; in which case you may run it in window.
(I own a monitor that can toggle between 16:10 and 4:3 modes on its own by squeezing image to rectangular in the center; I've also heard some graphic card drivers allow to do that in their settings).

Based on your previous post I thought you found a solution to your situation. That's why I haven't replied.

AGS won't be always able to run in fullscreen on all systems. It is not a glitch, it is natural graphics driver behavior.

Can you run in windowed mode during debug?

Also, what is your game's color mode (16-bit, 32-bit)?
What renderer do you use to run the game (DirectX 5, Direct3D 9)?

Also, I'm changing the name of the thread again, just to keep things fresh.

....
How do you call it when there are too many cows around?

Livestock Overflow.

Code: ags

 
   *   *   *   *   *               *   *   *   *   *
 *   *   *       *   *           *   *   *       *   *
   *   *    __ *   *               *   *   |   *   *
 *   *   * (__)  0               *   *     |__   0   
   *   *  /(oo)\ |                 *   *   (uu)  |   
 *  /-----\\\/   |               *  /-----\\--   |   
   / |     \\----<                 / |     \\----<
  *  ||----|     |                *  ||----|     |   
   __LL_/__L__/  +                 __LL_/__L__/  +
                            
                        
   Suomi Cow                       WHAM Cow     

Stupid follow up question, does that just create the token? If so, how do I add it to the text field in the top menu?

In Khris's example an object of type String is created. Then it is applied to the GUI Label here:

Code: ags

lblAction.Text = action.Append(Game.GetLocationName(mx, my));

lblAction is GUI Label's name, and Text is its property. It is assigned a string which is a result of string action + location name text. "Append" function makes one string of the two by concatenating them.