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I released another patch for 3.5.1, may be found on downloads page, or here:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-engine-editor-releases/ags-3-5-1-patch-19/

This bug was present at least since AGS 3.4.0, but somehow nobody reported it since.

[Download AGS 3.5.1 installer]

AGS 3.5.1 - Patch 19

Full release number: 3.5.1.26

Download AGS 3.5.1 installer

Download AGS 3.5.1 as a .zip archive

For Editor

Spoiler

VC 2015 redistributable needed for AGS Editor on Windows

Download Dark UI Theme for the editor

[close]

For Android

Spoiler

Android launcher (APK signed with Debug key), suitable for running any compatible AGS game

Native engine libraries, for making your own signed APKs

[close]

For Engine/Editor developers

Spoiler

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

[close]

Released: 5th March 2023

Previous stable version: AGS 3.5.0 P10 forum thread


This release is brought to you by:

- Alan v. Drake
- Crimson Wizard
- Donovan Watteau (fix for big-endian systems)
- eri0o
- fernewelten (fixes)
- James Duong (implemented "--console-attach" option for Windows)
- Morgan Willcock
- Nick Sonneveld
- rofl0r
- Pablo Navarro (fixes)
- Thierry Crozat (bug fixing)
- vga256 (bug fixing)



Summary

3.5.1 is a minor update after 3.5.0, which contains mostly utility additions, fixes and perfomance improvements.


Changes in the Patch 19:

Engine:
- Fixed System.Volume is not correctly applied after restoring the save. (Regression since at least 3.4.0)


Changes in the Patch 18:

Engine:
- Fixed background speech and textual overlays may disable GUI when being continuously created in repeatedly_execute* kind of functions. (Regression since previous patch).


Changes in the Patch 17:

Editor:
- Fixed GUI.Visible property was resetting to false when PopupStyle is switched to Modal.

Engine:
- Performance improvement in Direct3D/OpenGL renderers, related to plugins which subscribe to render events.
- Fixed renderer error occuring if room background frames are of different sizes.
- Fixed software renderer may have an unpainted black line at the bottom, if there's a GUI or Overlay positioned partially offscreen.
- Fixed GUI buttons could retain mouse-over pic after interface is disabled then enabled (this is a regression since recent patch).
- Fixed crash occuring when user creates too many Overlays in script; will report a scripting error instead.
- Fixed memory leak occuring when the TTF font is drawn partially outside the DrawingSurface.
- Fixed Parser.Said() could lead to a program crash in case there are space-separated words following the comma (e.g. "climb,get in bed").
- Fixed crash occuring if a plugin tried to call SetVirtualScreen().

Plugins:
- Fixed SnowRain plugin drawing particles only in 320x200 bounds.


Changes in the Patch 16:

Editor:
- Fixed autocomplete crashing the editor if there was an import declared with type and variable having identical names, and user tries to type that variable's name and a dot to access its members.
- Fixed newly created Views taking free IDs in the middle of the list in random order instead of a straight one (after you previously deleted some Views).

Engine:
- Added missing "DrawSprite" function for "agsblend" plugin stubs.
- Fixed loading pre-3.5.0 games on big endian systems.
- Fixed GUI buttons not displaying the mouse-over image if the interface state was toggled to enabled state while the mouse was over the button.

Updated the manual with certain fixes and corrected examples of using Camera and Viewport structs.


Changes in the Patch 15:

Editor:
- Fixed crash that could occur when changing View's ID to an unused number in the middle.
- Fixed comments and string literals were styled incorrectly in dialog scripts.
- Fixed unterminated string literals in script were not considered as errors when processing scripts for translation update and autonumbering of speech lines, leading to wrong results.
- Fixed Editor was updating translation file even if errors were found while scanning the scripts, which could cause a TRS corruption.
- Fixed Editor could overwrite changes done manually to TRS while the editor is open and if you run a translation update right after.
- Fixed potential program crash on exit in case an editor's plugin has mistakes in "shutdown" callback. Instead editor will report a component's error, but still close properly after.

Script API:
- Removed a rule that Viewport and Camera with ID 0 can't be deleted.


Changes in the Patch 14:

Editor:
- Do not error when compiling a 256 colors game if Direct3D or OpenGL are selected as a default graphics driver (display a warning instead).
- Fixed crash when trying to import pre-2.60 game projects.


Changes in the Patch 13:

Engine:
- Fixed room object does not update its texture if it had a dynamic sprite assigned to it, and that sprite was unassigned, modified or recreated with same ID, and then reassigned again, - all within the same game frame.
- Fixed normal font renderer is not reinitialized correctly in the engine if a plugin uses IAGSEngine::ReplaceFontRenderer(), passing original renderer's pointer (which it received from the previous ReplaceFontRenderer call).


Changes in the Patch 12:

Engine:
- Fixed GUI textual controls don't redraw when the game translation changes until player clicks on GUI (regression since previous 3.5.1 updates).
- Fixed multitasking mode persisting if the game was switched from windowed to fullscreen mode (even though it's not supposed to work in fullscreen).


Changes in the Patch 11:

Editor:
- Fixed batch sprite export with "Set exported file as sprite source" option was assigning new source paths without file extension.

Engine:
- Perfomance fix: GUIs changing Transparency or Visible state should not redraw their surface.

Compatibility:
- Allow AudioClip.Play to to place clips on a crossfade channel, which is normally unaccessible from script. This prevents errors in some games that relied on this behavior.


Changes in the Patch 10:

Engine:
- Fixed crash when visible viewport does not have any linked camera.
- Fixed ListBox.FillSaveGameList() may include save slots with negative slot number (e.g. when the save file has "*.-01" extension).
- Fixed potential crash after failed RunAGSGame() call.
- Fixed search for the game data by GUID when restoring a save belonging to another game;
  this was implemented in 3.5.1, but appeared to not work correctly.


Changes in the Patch 9:

Editor:
- Removed restriction on max dialog topics in the project. The dialog limit in the engine was removed in 3.4.1, but remained in the Editor by oversight.
- Fixed Audio Clip items in the project tree not displaying their IDs right after being renamed.

Compiler:
- Fixed crash occuring when compiler tries to report "Already referenced name as import" error.

Engine:
- Added "--translation" and "--no-translation" command-line arguments.


Changes in the Patch 8:

Engine:
- Clearer error messages for Get/SetProperty functions.
- Fixed PlayFlic() command fails to start the video (regression in 3.5.1).
- Fixed DrawingSurface.DrawSurface() not applying transparency parameter correctly if the drawn surface has alpha channel.
- Fixed OVERHOTSPOT is not updated immediately when character's name changes while cursor is above that character.

Templates:
- In BASS template fixed right click not dropping currently selected item if cursor was hovering over another item.


Changes in the Patch 7:

Editor:
- Added "Layout -> Reset to Defaults" menu command.
- Editor will now reset panel layout to default state if loading layout fail for any reason.
- Default config is now saved also when the game is run in debug mode (F5). This ensures that the test run is using the latest Default Setup, if the user's config has not been created yet.
- Editor will now display an error if user tried to reserve too many channels for audio types.
- Fixed Editor failing to start if user preferences file is corrupted.
- Fixed "Use old-style custom dialog options API" was not set when importing pre-3.4.0 projects.
- Fixed comboboxes' drop-down arrows were not painted with the right color from a color theme.

Engine:
- Fixed program crash occuring if the game reserved too many channels for audio types.
- Fixed potential crash occuring when player loads a save made in a multi-frame room, but the room was since edited and no longer has as many frames.
- Fixed character may have incorrect Frame (property) values while turning.


Changes in the Patch 6:

Editor:
- Added line numbers in the dialog script editor.
- Fixed Dialog script loosing changes if the pane is closed or redocked.
- Fixed controls arrangement on the Dialog pane getting broken when it's redocked.

Engine:
- Fixed filepaths in scripts that have backslashes ('\') fail on non-Windows systems.
  All the (script) File functions will now convert backslashes in filepaths into forward slashes for compatibility.
- Fixed engine was still creating standard directories for game saves and data, even if user provided the custom paths for these.
- Fixed TextBox control crashing the game if it's empty and player presses Backspace.
- Fixed controls on a fully transparent GUI were not interactive (this is an original AGS behavior, which was unintentionally changed in 3.5.0 by mistake).

Compatibility:
- When running 3.5.0 games, treat fully transparent GUI as non-interactable.
  In AGS transparent GUIs may be still interacted with, but 3.5.0 introduced an unintentional (and undocumented) change to this, which was reverted in 3.5.1.

Android:
- Support global engine's config file when the game is run from the Launcher: it's located in the AGS games' parent directory, same place where android.cfg is.

WinSetup:
- Added "Custom game shared data path" to complement "Custom save path" option.


Changes in the Patch 5:

Contained no changes and was a formal re-release with only fixed program build instructions for Linux.


Changes in the Patch 4:

Editor:
- Fixed swapping of inventory item's numeric ID could lead to errors.
- Fixed crash when importing pre-3.* games with multiple script modules.
- Renamed "Enforce object-based scripting" setting to "Enforce post-2.62 scripting". This is for clarity.

Compiler:
- Fixed potential memory corruption when user script reaches max nested if/else blocks.

Engine:
- Also tell module name and approximate source line when reporting script import errors for the variables and local functions.


Changes in the Patch 3:

Editor:
- Fixed sprite file over 2 GB could not be loaded (regression since the last patch).

Engine:
- Further improvement to GUI perfomance: don't redraw GUI when the mouse cursor is hovering over or interacting with controls not leading to an actual visual change.
- Fixed ListBox items could become unaccessible if its font or height is changed leading to a disabled scrollbar.


Changes in the Patch 2:

Engine:
- Fixed speech lipsync getting disabled after loading another game with RunAGSGame().
- Fixed MOD/XM clips fail to play (regression).
- Fixed certain OGV videos fail to play (regression).
- Fixed software renderer was not updating game screen correctly when running a game with legacy "letterboxed" feature (regression).


Changes in the Patch 1:

Editor:
- Fixed script compiler sometimes was not specifying actual Dialog number when reporting errors in the dialog scripts.

Engine:
- Fixed Game.TranslationFilename always returning empty string (regression).
- Fixed GUI controls which were toggled from disabled to enabled state not responding to the mouse clicks until the mouse is moved (regression).
- Fixed OpenGL did not apply a Linear filter when "Render sprites in screen resolution" option is off.


What is new in 3.5.1

Editor:
- Added "Attach game data to exe" option to General Settings. This lets you to package game data separately from the game.exe (only important on Windows at the moment).
- Deprecated "Limit display mode to 16-bit" property in Runtime Setup as it's no longer used by the engine.
- Display aspect ratio in game resolution dialog.
- Implemented classic Color Picker dialog for the Color type values in the property grid, instead of the default one which does not allow user-defined colors.
- Improved tab switching performance for script windows.
- Editor will now enforce full game rebuild after upgrading an older project, this ensures that all scripts are recompiled with the new version rules.
- Fixed room lists in property editor were not updated after room number is changed.
- Fixed importing pre-3.* projects broken by incorrect assignment of "Game file name" property.
- Fixed importing Characters and GUI without sprites still created empty sprite folders.
- Fixed crash when exporting/importing Characters with no Normal View.
- Fixed translation compiler did not correctly save some of the escaped sequences, such as "\n".

Scripting:
- Implemented correct parsing of a "const string" function return type.
- Fixed implementing imported functions was forbidden in the room scripts.

Script API:
- Added GUI.Shown readonly property that tells whether GUI is active on screen. This is primarily for GUIs with "Popup At Y" style, because they hide themselves regardless of Visible property. Note that since 3.5.0 GUI.Visible only tells a script-set value.
- File.Open() now supports $CONFIGFILE$ tag which will try to open user config file for reading or writing regardless of where config is located on disk.
- Added System.SaveConfigToFile() which writes current engine settings to the user config file. Only the options that can be changed at runtime are written back at the moment.
- GetTranslation() now returns "const string" (was "string"). This is to prevent modifying returned string using old-style string functions, such as StrCat(), as this string may be allocated in the internal engine memory for its own use.

Engine:
- Support loading audio and video from data packages larger than 2 GB.
- Improved game data loading times by introducing buffered file stream. Initial tests showed 3-4 times faster file reading.
- Improved game perfomance by not reupdating all of the GUIs each time anything changes, instead only affected GUI will be updated each time.
- Some improvement to general script perfomance.
- Some improvement to script Dictionary and Set types perfomance.
- Room Object's Graphic property now can be assigned a sprite with index over 32767 and up to 65535. This restriction is due to internal data format, which cannot be fully fixed without breaking compatibility with plugin API. This may still be worked around by assigning a View, as View's frames may contain sprites of any index available.
- Similarily, Object's View, Loop and Frame can now be assigned a value over 32767 and up to 65535; not that this was ever an issue...
- Removed arbitrary limit of 1000000 dynamic array elements (now supports over 2 billion).
- Dialogs with no enabled options left will be now stopped, instead of raising script error.
- Engine will not longer quit the game when failing to write a save, but simply display an error on screen (...why this was a thing in the first place?!).
- When restoring a save engine will now try to match game pack by GUID rather than using exe/pack name. This resolves potential problems when game package may have different name in distribution to another system. Also makes saves in multi-game collections more reliable.
- In Debug game mode allow to toggle infinite FPS mode (prior it could not be turned off).
- Expanded text parser error messages for easier debugging.
- Adjusted all the command-line options to have consistent prefix convention, where all full-name options must be preceded by double-dash, and one-letter options by single dash.
- Added "--localuserconf" command and similar global config option which tells engine to read and write user config in the game's directory rather than using standard platform path. Game dir must be writeable for this to work.
- Added "--conf" command which forces engine to read only explicit config file on startup.
- Added "--user-data-dir" and "--shared-data-dir" commands for setting save game directory and shared app data directory from command line (this corresponds to existing options in config).
- Fully configurable log output (in both game config and command line) allows to set up which message types and groups are printed by which output methods (sinks), including: file, system console, in-game console. "warnings.log" is now created only if file log was not requested by user.
- Added "--log-" set of command line options for setting up log output.
- Added "--tell-filepath" option for printing known engine's and game's file locations.
- Added "--tell-gameproperties" option for printing some of the game's general settings.
More information on log config and --tell commands currently may be found in following text file: OPTIONS.md
This has to be added to the manual eventually.
- Support proper lookup for Allegro 4 library resources (such as its own config and digital MIDI patches) in the game directory.
- Engine will no longer precreate directories for common files: saves, user config, shared files and so forth, - before actually having to write these. This ensures that no new directories are created on your disk without actual need. Also this fixed a problem that could happen if someone deleted e.g. a game's save directory while game was running.
- Fixed running game from another directory by passing its relative filename as command-line argument: in this case engine was incorrectly using its own directory to search for external game data, opening files for reading by script command, and so on.
- Fixed some of the engine's own hotkeys (such windowed/fullscreen mode toggle) not working during certain skippable game states.
- Fixed overlay was set to wrong position if it were using TextWindow gui and either its text or X, Y properties got changed.
- Fixed crash occuring when the speech is using text window gui with zero Padding and the speech text is an empty line.
- Fixed characters and room objects were not updating their looks if their current graphic was a Dynamic Sprite, and that sprite was modified with ChangeCanvasSize, CopyTransparencyMask, Crop, Flip, Resize, Rotate or Tint function.
- Fixed Views' frames keeping reference to deleted Dynamic Sprites causing crashes. Now they will be reset to dummy sprite 0 for safety.
- Fixed engine crash when button's graphic is set to sprite out of range.
- Fixed animated cursor's normal graphic reappearing in between animation frames if mouse mode is being repeatedly reassigned, for example in rep-exec script.
- Fixed certain interactions did not work with GUI if it was made fully transparent.
- Fixed ListBox.FillSaveGameList() search pattern, it included files which contain save filename pattern but do not exactly match; for example: "agssave.001_".
- Fixed engine was ignoring audio files in game directory when running games which use old audio system.
- Fixed crash in Direct3D and OpenGL renderers that occured if game uses a plugin that performs software drawing on screen, and one of the rooms is smaller than the game's resolution.
- Fixed Direct3D was assigning wrong fullscreen refresh rate sometimes, slowing alt-tabbing.
- Fixed "--test" mode was lost upon restoring a save.

Engine Plugin API:
- Added IAGSEngine::GetRenderStageDesc() function which returns current render stage parameters. As of this version these parameters include 3 transformation matrixes, allowing any 3D render plugin to stay compliant to engine's scene rendering.

Compatibility:
- Fixed engine was trying to read unnecessary data when loading pre-2.72 games.
- Fixed "upscale" mode for old games (was broken in 3.5.0). Also engine will now try to detect if "upscale" mode wanted by reading old config options (if they are present).
- Fixed GUI.Visible not returning expected values for GUIs with "Popup At Y" style in pre-3.5.0 games, breaking some older games logic.
- Fixed potential buffer overflow when reading pre-3.1.0 games with old dialog script texts.
- Fixed engine was applying player's position too early when ChangeRoom was called for 2.72 and earlier games, which could result in wrong placement in the new room if the character was walking right before the transition.

Android:
- Corrected game scanning in AGS launcher, now it will work consistently with the desktop ports, and detect any compatible game data files named "*.ags" or "*.exe".

OSX:
- When looking for game files engine will no longer use hardcoded filename, will search for any compatible pack file instead.

Windows:
- Windows version of the engine now reads global configuration file. It is looked up in "%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games/Adventure Game Studio/acsetup.cfg"
- Default log file location is now also in "%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games/Adventure Game Studio".
- Added "--no-message-box" command line option to hide message boxes when alerts are raised. These messages will be still printed to log (if one is enabled).
- Added "--console-attach" command line option to try attach to the parent process's console. This is useful if you run game from command line and want to see engine's log in the console.

WinSetup:
- Fixed changing fullscreen mode from "use current desktop" to explicit resolution on save.







Thanks to everyone who contributed to and tested this version!

Hi!
I'm helping the SST remake with a translation but we seem to get random output depending on the host machine.

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04, the developer of the game uses Windows. I send him the translation files and he compiles everything.

-When he plays on Windows translation to Catalan is full
-When I do the same with the same build on Linux, I get mixed untranslated/translated strings
-Same result (mixed strings) if I test the same build on the web engine.

What would be the next steps to find the possible issue?

This is a strange issue, where translation not fully works or fully not works, but works only partially.

I don't have a lot of immediate ideas, but to start somewhere, there are few questions:

Are the non-working lines same all the time?
Can you compare the tra files (e.g. by size) to see if these are indeed identical in both windows and linux/web build?

If I understand correctly, you are using AGS 3.6.0 Editor (judging by the web port). Is your Text Format in this game Unicode or ASCII (may be found in Game Setiings)? What about the translation source format (TRS file)?

But in the game, in the statusbar at the bottom of the screen still writes Book despites we see there's a coin on the counter not a book.

Well, of course, because it does not know that it should be using your custom property. You also need to change how the status bar displays the object names.

I don't know how do you that in your game, have you scripted the status bar yourself, or you are using some built-in behavior?

If custom property is supposed to be optional (not set for all the objects), then you could do this:
* check if custom property's text value is not empty;
* if it's empty, then use the object's Name;
* if it's not empty, then use the property's text.

For a while the website is displaying a link to the forum thread of an upcoming Alpha/Beta version of AGS on downloads page, but it's hidden under a very obscure "Other Downloads & Resources >>" spoiler, and even there it's  somewhere in the middle of the links list, named "AGS Work in Progress Releases", with a link that leads to a forum thread.

(For some reason a "Previous version" link is even more visible)

This apparently is quite inconvenient and people keep missing its presence.

Is there anything that could be done with this?

From my experience, when software's Beta is ready, their websites have both latest stable and next wip version downloads as two buttons together.

3.5.1

I guess I need to update my AGS Studio.

You may, but you don't have to, if it's only this problem, there are solutions in 3.5.1 too which I mentioned, and maybe some others.

Edited: I noted in AGS main page, the last version is 3.5.1 patch 18.

Where can I find 3.6?

3.6.0 is still not final, it's a wip version. It's under "Other downloads & resources" on the page.
Also in this forum thread:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-engine-editor-releases/ags-3-6-0-release-candidate-rc1/

I tried it and I got an error. Object.Name is read only.

Which version of AGS exactly are you using? Object.Name is only available for change in 3.6.0.

In earlier versions you would need to use something else, like custom properties, or make your own variables in script to store object descriptions.

If you mean, Object.Name, this may only be changed at runtime since AGS 3.6.0.

In earlier versions the solution may be to use custom properties instead.
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/CustomProperties.html

This seem to be a pretty old regression, looks like it's been there for a few versions at least...

I will be releasing another small patch to 3.5.1 soon then.

3.6.0 is currently in "release candidate" state, and we are working on some last-moment fixes:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-engine-editor-releases/ags-3-6-0-release-candidate-rc1/
There should be a download link on the AGS front page too, but it's hidden under some collapsable "More Downloads" link, so not standing out.

[but not in 3.6.0]

I apologize for this month-long delay, I was planning to look again into this, but constantly got distracted by something.

After making another, different test, I was actually able to reproduce this effect. (Tbh I don't know what did I do differently this time)
Here I will put a download link for a test game I'm using:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/csom9y8ksnuit78/test--systemvolume.zip?dl=0

The problem reproduces in 3.5.1, but not in 3.6.0 (it was likely fixed between the versions).

To reproduce:
When you run the game, the music is playing repeatedly.
Put slider to a high value. Notice how music became louder. Save the game in slot A.
Put slider to a low value. Notice how music became quieter. Save the game in slot B.
Now, restore the slot A. Notice how music did not become loud again, until you move the slider a bit.
Now, restore the slot B. Notice how music did not become quiete,  until you move the slider a bit.

I think, if nothing bad happens, we may announce a "stable" release on the 1st March (just to have some round date).

Every time I say this...

There are couple of problems with the Web port which we are looking at currently, but hopefully they won't require alot of changes.

[*]

The situation with AGS plugins is not critical, but remains annoying. The idea of a plugin system assumes that it's something you may "plug-in" and "unplug" easily, but, even if we forget compatibility mode, with AGS we have to 1) built-in a selection of common plugins for particular platforms, 2) add hardcoded stubs for "optional" plugins (ones that are not required to complete the game). An alternative to this is probably to let game authors make custom engine builds, combining "official" engine code and plugin together (example: I have a suspicion that "Kathy Rain"'s steam version has a steam plugin built-in, because it's not present in the game folder). Maybe the latter could be achieved by distributing a template CMake script that allows to easily extend the engine with plugin sources. As the cloud building services become widespread now, some things probably may be achieved even by the unexperienced people without programming background.

For another instance, right now the SpriteFont in our repository has a hardcoded behavior switch based on the game GUID. The reason for this is that a separate game team created their own variant of this plugin without changing the name*. So when we support running that game, we cannot rely on the plugin's name. So our plugin's code literally sais: for certain selection of games - do something special; this contradicts to the concept of a plugin and API.

(* - unfortunately, I noticed that people like to make custom versions of the engine or plugins without indicating that, by e.g. changing a version number or an internal name. This commonly leads to problems in the future.)

Personally, I prefer to distinguish a "proper plugin" and "engine's workaround", at least in theory. For that reason I also imagine that there could be a separate repository with this plugin (or a collection of plugins), with their own dedicated maintainers. If it's necessary to produce engine with this plugin built-in, we might either have a copy of the source, or a submodule. If there is a need to have some additional hacks (like the aforementioned hack in our SF plugin now), then we might have either a copy of plugin with these changes, or work around somehow else, by linking files from a submodule with our own sources that "inject" these hacks.

I know that sounds like extra work, but in my opinion the project goal should be to clean the repository, and the engine, up from the bits that do not directly relate to it. And, eventually, find a solution for having to hardcode something every time a plugin is added (like stubs).

OTOH, I think the SpriteFont plugin is probably the only one still relevant we maintain, so perhaps some of it's functionality should be a feature in the engine?

In case of SpriteFont, I think - yes, and it's been suggested before. So long as a good API is designed for this; like a Font class, with extensions, etc (we should not blindly take plugin's API as-is).

The primary reason for the SpriteFont being a plugin and not a script overall was that it's easier this way, as there are no script callbacks for "draw a text" that would replace all the speech and GUI. And also, previously, iirc there have been some issues with 32-bit alpha transparency in old AGS.

I think we need to distribute a new version of SpriteFont ourselves, perhaps from a separate repository.

And additionally add API to explicitly choose newer font renderers which we had to support for "Clifftop Games". Since they are in our plugin anyway. Right now they are selected using a game-detection hack, which is only suitable for built-in compatibility feature.

@Crimson Wizard in Kathy Rain, there is a small part of the text being cut at the bottom for letters that go down the text line (like g and y), do you think this change you mentioned could be related to that observed behavior?

Depends on which version of the plugin you are running it with; but judging from what I've seen it is probably something else.
If you look closer, it seems that the letters themselves are drawn correctly (in greyish colors), but the outline is missing in these parts.

[1)]

Alright, so I remembered what the problem is now.

There has been a change in the 3.6.0 engine:
Before 3.6.0 the font's height was calculated anew each time any text is drawn. This was inefficient and also seemed redundant, as the font's height actually never should depend on a text itself, it's a fixed value. Maybe there were other reasons connected to all the changes to fonts made in 3.6.0 (i may have forgotten them).

In a nutshell, 3.6.0 only remembers the font's height once the font is registered. The new plugin API, introduced for 3.6.0, actually allows the font plugin to notify the engine if the font changes, and that forces engine to recalculate the font params. But old plugins did not have such capability.

So, in case of the old SpriteFont plugin, font's height must be known at the time when **SetSpriteFont** and **SetVariableSpriteFont** are called.
But your script registers a sprite font before it's been assigned any glyphs yet, and thus its height is equal to zero.

There are two ways to solve this problem:
1) Use an updated version of plugin, built anew from our sources. It does not have any changes in API (script functions), but has an enhanced "conversation" with the engine.
2) As a workaround: call SetVariableSpriteFont AFTER you set the glyphs. This does not seem to cause any problems, as the plugin is smart and creates a new font internally if it was not created with "SetSpriteFont" yet. But because the SetVariableSpriteFont is called afterwards, the plugin already knows the glyph metrics and so can already calculate text height upon registration.

NOTE: it looks like this is only an issue with Variable sprite fonts, as the regular sprite fonts require to pass a "height" parameter upon creation.

I can't do it right now, but I'll upload the game later in the day and DM you. Is it ok if I share the current build of the full game or do you want me to make a test game just to show the problem?

Hmm, a test game is usually better, since it lets to narrow a problem down, but in case of fonts, I think, both variants will work, as the fonts setup is not too complicated.

I had read this part of the manual before I posted. What confused me was that the font I'm using isn't a "TTF font specifically created or adjusted for older versions of AGS" and it still required the setting to display correctly.

Perhaps this is not worded well; apparently this applies to certain fonts but not the others. I do not know alot about the reasons. We're using a very old font rendering library, which may have its own mistakes, or miss support for certain font kinds.

Judging by the screenshots, the font height is not calculated right. I would need to investigate this in a test game.

Is this an offer? I can upload the game somewhere and share it if you'd be willing to look into it, but I don't want to waste too much of your time, so also feel totally free to ignore me.

I would like to get to the bottom of this, because if this is a error in the engine, or broken compatibility with this plugin, then I must fix it.

If you can send a game, that would be wonderful; if not, maybe I could try emulating this case in dummy game (but I would need to know some specifics about the font setups).

I suppose my question is why this setting is necessary in the first place and what can be done for the sprite font to work properly?

This setting is for backwards compatibility; some TTF fonts require automatic adjustment in order to be displayed "correctly" in AGS. More information about this may be found in the manual: https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/UpgradeTo36.html#ttf-fonts-behavior

I don't know why exactly the sprite font is not working properly, but my guess is that something got broken in the engine. Because plugin's fonts replace original fonts, some settings may have remained from the original fonts, for example (this is only a guess), or maybe something does not initialize correctly. Judging by the screenshots, the font height is not calculated right. I would need to investigate this in a test game.

Update: It seems the normal font has the same issue as the sprite font with "resize ascender to nominal height" switched off? So this setting fixes the issue with standard fonts but doesn't affect the spritefont plugin?

Of course, as it's called "TTF font adjustment" it only affects TTF fonts. Sprite fonts are not TTF fonts and should not be affected by this setting (if they are - that's a mistake).

I'd like to note that OpenGL renderer don't have Gamma working at all at the moment (not even in a fullscreen).