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My process changes from year to year and game to game. It depends on the game and what the focus is. For Blackwell, the focus was always the character and the dialog, so I always wrote that first. For Unavowed, I really want to focus on the exploration and interactive elements before the dialog, so I make sure to get that solid before homing in on the dialog stuff.

For example, I usually start by sketching out ideas in my notebook. Most everything I cross out, but eventually something coalesces into something I think is good. Like this fight with a sea monster:



Then I open up MS Paint and start making placeholder graphics and implementing puzzles and designs.



I figure if I can make a scene with my crappy line drawings and STILL make it fun and interesting, then I'm confident enough to move on to final art:


(ended up putting the monster to the BACK of the boat so we could have a chase scene instead)

Then I start writing all the dialog and flavor text to support it.

And then for the next game I will do it all differently!

Heh. I really like millennial Mika.

I can't speak for everybody, but I've been working almost exclusively in my dropbox folder for almost a decade and I've never had any problems with it.

Hm. I usually use the "stretch to fit screen (preserve aspect ratio)" filter. I changed it to "max round multiplier" but I had the same behavior.

Oh my god you're right. I was using a different version of the engine. Using the right one this time.

So. The first thing I notice is that when I run the game, it takes much longer for the game to come up on my screen than normal. 5-10 seconds when it used to be almost instantaneous. And whereas before it had my intro splash screen fade up from black (with the music fading in from silence), it now just sharply cuts to the image and the music with no fade-in for either.

That said, the alt-enter works as advertised. It takes a few seconds to switch from one or the other, and the windowed version isn't an ideal size (it seems to be defaulting to the native size of the game, which is quite small) but it works.

-Dave

Edit: It also takes longer for the game to quit. It used to be instantaneous, and now it's around 5 seconds or so. Not a dealbreaker but it's something I noticed.

Well, I commenting out the "F9 restart" command in the global script and recompiled. This time, I pressed alt-enter and nothing at all happened. I tried it in both DirectDraw and Direct3D mode.

So I tried it out. I loaded up my game, pressed alt-enter, and the game just restarted itself. I assume that's not the correct behavior? I am running the game in direct3D mode.

edit: same happens in directdraw.

Yeesh I didn't see this until now. Apologies! Feel free to poke me via PM if you need someone to test these things. I don't always check the forum as often as I should.

Downloading now!

Oh yeah. I already do something similar, but having to do that for every single animation loop is a bit time consuming. It would save a lot of time to name those loops right from the View panel. By, for example, double-clicking on the loop number and a text field pops up.

Wouldn't that add lots of unnecessary steps?

You'd have to change the view, then play the animation, and then change it back. I keep all the animation loops on the same view for that reason.

Pardon me if this is the wrong place to put this.

In my current game, all my characters have 50+ animation loops thus far and it got so complex I had to create a function for each animation so I could keep track of them properly. This has added a lot of coding to my project, but I figure that could be eliminated if we could name loops the same way we can name views.

For example, ifI have a character named Eli I named his view "vEli", which makes his view easy to refer to in script. But he has a jump animation which is loop 45 and I have to remember that number every time I want to make him jump. It would be nice to be able to name his loop "eliJump" (or something better) and refer to it like this:

cEli.Animate(eliJump, 4, eOnce, eBlock, eForward);

Is such a thing possible?

Happy Holidays!

-Dave

Just saw this. Excellent news! Do you need anyone to test this?

Hanging out with a jinn in Central Park's North Woods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WdVRFtcbuM

I was interviewed by Adventure Corner about Unavowed!

My AdventureX talk has hit Youtube! It's called "Instinct Vs. Experience" and I talked a lot about Unavowed's development.

I enjoyed it very much, Dave.  I'm looking forward to the game's release!

So am I, believe me!

Idling in the rain by a dead body.

I never added my thoughts to this thread! A week late, but I have to say that this is the year where I felt that AdventureX officially "grew up." In years past it was just a "fun thing I did every year" but this time I really believed that I was part of something important. The fact that it was so packed you had to turn people away is evidence of that. I'm really honored to have been a part of it. Thanks again!

Edit: Oh and my talk is now up on Youtube. Woo!

My AdventureX talk has hit Youtube! It's called "Instinct Vs. Experience" and I talked a lot about Unavowed's development.

Heading down myself!

I've been here since yesterday! Meet in the lobby bar at 8ish?