Topics

[Over at iccup.com you can even download a version for free (legally) and play online, so there's no reason NOT to play...]

Anybody interested in playing some good old StarCraft? I've been playing for some time now and I really love playing it as well as following the pro-scene in Korea etc.

Somebody interested in a friendly match?

Over at iccup.com you can even download a version for free (legally) and play online, so there's no reason NOT to play...

I'm not a total newbie anymore but still far away from mastering anything, please don't be shy or discouraged, this game is always fun.

If we get a few players together, we could even do a mini tournament maybe? Also, I can cast (commentate) games and upload them in HD to youtube for others to watch etc.

[The first character always stops for a few seconds in one spot of the screen.]

I have the following problem:

I let a character walk around in a room. The room has no walkable area, it's a cutscene and I want precise movement, so I use the character.Walk command with eAnywhere. There are also two more characters following this one on the very same path. All characters are set to non-solid. The first character always stops for a few seconds in one spot of the screen.

Here's my room script, I use a simple waypoint system there to define paths as you can see:

Code: ags

int current_waypoint[3];

function room_FirstLoad()
{
	cFirst.Walk ( 120, 195, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
	cSecond.Walk ( 120, 195, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
	cThird.Walk ( 120, 195, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
}

function room_RepExec()
{
	if ( current_waypoint[0] == 0 && cFirst.x > 115 )
	{
		cFirst.Walk ( 247, 150, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[0] = 1;
	}
	if ( current_waypoint[1] == 0 && cSecond.x > 115 )
	{
		cSecond.Walk ( 247, 150, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[1] = 1;
	}
	if ( current_waypoint[2] == 0 && cThird.x > 115 )
	{
		cThird.Walk ( 247, 150, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[2] = 1;
	}
	
	if ( current_waypoint[0] == 1 && cFirst.x > 245 )
	{
		cFirst.Walk ( 130, 140, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[0] = 2;
	}
	if ( current_waypoint[1] == 1 && cSecond.x > 245 )
	{
		cSecond.Walk ( 130, 140, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[1] = 2;
	}
	if ( current_waypoint[2] == 1 && cThird.x > 245 )
	{
		cThird.Walk ( 130, 140, eNoBlock, eAnywhere );
		current_waypoint[2] = 2;
	}
}

Here's what I have tried:

Erasing the other two characters -> doesn't make a difference.
Checking differences between the characters -> there are NONE, even if I said cFirst and cThird for example to the EXACT SAME VIEW (so that ALL their properties except for the ID, even their starting location, are absolutely equal), cThird walks flawlessly, cFirst stops for a few seconds.

I'm out of ideas and starting to wonder whether this might a bug in AGS.

The main question is: what could make a lone character walking a room with eAnyways stop for a few moments anyway? I can't think of anything. Even when there is an EXACT copy of the character at same position at all times and he makes the walk perfectly. I've triple checked my code and it seems flawless as well.

Anybody see anything wrong?

Two days ago I started noticing that some images on this forum here seemed to have turned pink. Take a look:



It doesn't appear on all images though, most are displayed correctly. I thought it was a new theme or whatever and didn't worry about it. Then I saw it was also there on two or three images on another, unrelated and non-forum page.

I then took screenshots and checked in Paint to see whether it was just my monitor messing up - but no, the rgb sliders say that the pink color tint is really there.

It's only Firefox (Internet Explorer for example still renders this forum fine) and it's not just one image type (.png, .jpg, .gif or similar) - does anybody have ANY idea what could cause this? Any help is greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Oh, and if I right-click an affected image and hit "view image" it shows that image in isolation, in pink.

Okay, this is really wierd: for a small project I have worked on a bunch of backdrops this day. Now I found a nice sprite on my old harddrive with a character that goes really well with the background style.

Problem is, I used to study a lot of different people's styles and... I'm really not sure whether this one is original or not. I can't tell.

So I hope that - if I wasn't the one who came up with the character and drew it - the author or somebody who recognizes the work will come here and let me know.

The sprite in question is this one:



The head in particular seems a little 'foreign' to me, I was thinking MrColossal maybe?

Tune contests used to run for two weeks maximum, however in the last months they have frequently been set with deadlines often not sooner than a whole month later (and in some cases even then allowed extensions). I believe that this is way too long and that a set running time for this (and possible all/most competitions should be said). For the tune contest, I would go with two weeks.

The reason I dislike the month-long running time is mostly that it means that in the first two or three weeks nobody will enter. In addition, two weeks are more than enough for anybody to compose a song. People make whole games in (less than) a month, if you take that long with one tune, you're doing something wrong (or working at such a professional level that you're entry is not appropriate for the contest anyways). Also, more frequent change of topic means that I, as a potential participant, can find something I like more often. And it doesn't mean waiting for weeks after having posted an entry to wait for the results. I feel it would make the whole thing a lot more fluent and less... "dead".

All in favor? Any voices against this?

[rendering of 3d worlds and sprites]

For a few days now I have been working on a plugin for AGS that allows the rendering of 3d worlds and sprites through a technique called raycasting. It works very similar to how the first ego-shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D and Doom 1 worked.

Here is a link to a youtube video for a preview:

Click the image to view the video...

The engine features the following at the moment:
- walls can be rendered at any angle, round parts are possible
- as many textures as you like
- sprites for objects and enemies*
- waypoints for enemies*
- comes with an editor for levels
- is designed in a flexible manner: the actual game controls the crosshair or the weapon or the movement etc. (so more than straightforward shooters are possible)
- runs stable at 40fps, even for more complex scenes (in-depth stress testing will still follow)

*these features are implemented but not shown in the video, sorry, my hard-drive is too full for longer footage.

Any feedback, you think you could use this in a game?

Oh, and before I forget - the next you are going to see about this is most likely going to be a short deathmatch game using this plugin.

I am currently writing a plugin and when I try and react to keypresses trough the AGSE_KEYPRESS-event the following bug occurs:

Letters (for example a [65 or something]) only work when the user hits them with shift, it only works with capital letters - and not, as the plugin-manual says, just like in AGS. This should be easy to fix, right?

[NES game]

For this edition of the Tune Contest, please write a song that could've been used well in a NES game of the late eighties/early nineties. What this means is: up to three layers maximum, if you use MIDI, make sure to use the patch "Lead 1 (Square)" for all layers exclusively, nothing else, if you insist on producing an .ogg/.mp3, please use a synthesizer that gets as close as possible to this sound. For extra points, add parts in your song that would be played when the player loses a life, gets into a fight (boss fight?), wins a stage etc. Of course, it's also a good idea to actually imagine a game you're writing music for - for example you could think of a game set in Persia, use a lot of Arabian scales in your track and that would be a good extra advantage to have as well. Be creative!

It's due December 15th 2008, GMT+/- 1 hour. Extensions are possible.

I hope a lot of people enter, I might whip up some trophies.

Good luck and have fun!

I've just recalled playing this adventure game years ago, I'd like to know what it's called, maybe some of you can help me.

Hints I can give:

- the name had something like "time", "watch" or "clock" in it and "tower" (no, it's not the "clock tower" series, by the way)...
- it might have been commercial or free-ware
- I think it was 3d characters in 2d drawn backgrounds, this means it can not be THAT old, maybe '99, maybe later
- you were playing a man in some kind of mansion/big house
- the atmosphere was spooky without any blood
- only story-event I recall was standing in a garden and there was a glass-house thingie there and all of the sudden one of the glass walls were broken, nobody knew why

I hope this is enough, maybe I get lucky. I'd love to play this one again, I remember liking it.

Keep in mind that some of my hints might not apply 100% as it's been some time, if you think you have a game that almost fits the description, please post anyways. A wrong guess is no deal.

[INTRODUCTION]

DO YOU REMEMBER A PROJECT CALLED...
[size=9]T[/size]ROOPERS?

INTRODUCTION

Three years ago I started my first project with AGS that wasn't a simple adventure - no, it was going to be a real-time strategy game. I didn't know all that much about programming back in the day, but the project got some pretty positive response (every now and then I still get a message about how it's doing), but in the end it came what had to come: I couldn't finish it.
      So much for the past - now I have decided to pick up the old horse again and take a good ride on her: it's back! But not only have I matured and learned in the meantime, AGS has done, too. Only with the more recent feature-additions of AGS 3.0 have I been able to build up the courage to give this another try. The feature list is similar, although I'm currently taking more influences from StarCraft as opposed to the heavy Command&Conquer-ness that was going on in the old version from 2005.
      I have a pretty decent working tech-demo pretty much done right now, which implements almost every single feature that is going to be in the game, so that's pretty good progress already done (I waited quite some time with this thread in order to keep the interested from having to wait for years - and to follow the forum-rules, of course). The majority of work now has to go into developing content (because if I learned one thing from my previous little doodad, Revelations, it's that a game can not appear well to a big audience if it's only technically impressive, it has to be a good game as well - well, duh, could've figured that one out myself in retrospect, but I guess I just didn't) - speaking of content, here is the list of features, which helps you to build your own picture up of how the game is going to look and feel like, it's followed by three screenshots to take the picture you just build up in your mind and rip it into pieces:


LIST OF FEATURES

• Build units and structures, select them, move them and let them attack - just like in most recent real-time strategy games (includes features like queuing build-commands for units, grouping units into teams using numbers 0-9, selecting units by drawing a rectangle and adding or removing single units by holding CTRL when clicking)...
  
• Use workers to gain resources to pay for new units, structures, upgrades and technology...
  
• Play against a computer-enemy that will hopefully act remotely intelligent...
  
• Get a quick overview of the battlefield on the radar-map, it not only shows you units and structures, but also the general shape of the terrain underneath them, so that you can successfully lead your troops through those narrow canyons...
  
• Different terrain-types, lots of different units and buildings (exact numbers are not clear yet)...
  
• Fog-of-War effect to make the game-play a lot more interesting...
  
• Music and sound-effects (format of music is not yet decided)...
  
• Editor to create own levels...
  

SCREENSHOTS (PARTIAL AND FULL SHOTS)

Newest:

Older:

Please keep in mind that nothing is final yet, that means the name might be different, there might be more than one resource, the graphics may change and - as you read above - the exact number of unit- and structure-types isn't yet fixed either. Please use this thread to comment and criticize constructively, tell me what you think, suggest units or technologies...

For a little project, I need to rotate dynamic sprites. I have one set up for now and when I press the UP cursor-key, it rotates it by calling the DynamicSprite.Rotate ( ) function with "1" passed as parameter for the angle. When trying the game out, nothing happens. When I enter "45" as angle, it works, but will mess up the pixels in the sprite the more it is rotated. When I change the sprite dimensions from even values to uneven ones, it will work with any number, BUT it will mess up the whole sprite a whole lot, reduce its size, if turned enough even make it disappear all while not rotating properly (there are rectangular areas around the sprite rotating somehow, while a little "core" zone in the middle will stay the same).

As I tried this with a few different approaches and even in the older 2.X versions already, I'm pretty sure it's not my mistake - however I was surprised to NOT find anything about it on the forums or the bug-tracker already. I can post screens, but it's really quickly and easily reproduced - plus, I'd say I'd still be pretty surprised if most people who played with AGS and its more advanced rendering options for some time don't know what I'm talking about here already.

Or are AGS' dynamic-sprite-rotating-functions not really made for rotating in "real-time" and small angle-increments?

Hope I made myself clear with this, I'm pretty tired though, so ask if you don't understand something.

[1. About the old RawDrawing]

So, I upgraded to 3.0 recently and now I have two tiny questions that used to be no big deal with older versions, but now I'm not so sure anymore:

1. About the old RawDrawing

Is this the correct, best and fastest way to draw:

Code: ags

function CRenderer::StartDrawing ( )
// prepares the renderer for drawing a new frame
{
      // init surface
      this.Surface = Room.GetDrawingSurfaceForBackground ( );
      
      // clear screen
      this.Surface.Clear ( );
}

function CRenderer::EndDrawing ( )
// shuts the renderer down after drawing a frame
{
      // release surface
      this.Surface.Release ( );
}

I call Renderer.StartDrawing ( ) in the beginning of rep_ex ( ) and Renderer.EndDrawing ( ) in the end of rep_ex ( ). In between both calls, I then draw my lines and pixels.


2. About sharing variables in between scripts

I have several modules or scripts in my game to nicely spread the source-code out into several files. The two functions you see above are part of the Renderer-script, for example. Now, I also have a Map- and a Camera-Script. The Map-script holds all information for a - well, you guessed it - map (or level, in which the player can move around) and the Camera-script holds all the information of the - you guessed it again - camera (position, angle).
Now on to the problem: I have a function called Camera.Move ( ) in order to - third time you guessed right - move the camera. This is needed because I have to do some camera-calculations at this point. Those calculations include checking the map, whether the player is going to be standing in a wall and then blocking the movement for collision-detection. This would be no problem, if the Map-script wouldn't need the camera-script to get the position and angle to then draw the map correctly to the screen.
So, basically I have two scripts with structs in them, that both need to know about each other respectively.
My files are set up like this: in the header there's the struct-definition like this:

Code: ags

struct CObject
{
      int a;
      int b;

      import function   Test ( );
};

import CObject Object;

And in my script-file, it looks like this:

Code: ags

CObject Object;

int CObject::Test ( )
// test, test, test
{
      // do the darn test
}

export Object;

This way works great when one script needs a struct from another script (by also moving them in the right order in the hierarchy-pane on the right in the editor), but when I have two scripts that need each other structs, it won't work this way. Is this possible somehow else or will I have to suggest this?

Thanks ahead of time.

[I]

I know I'm not a moderator and shouldn't act like one, but I've recently come across a bunch of comments that were indicating a general misunderstanding of the "Popular Threads"-forum pretty clearly.

Now, I am pretty sure it's meant for threads asking questions in a similar fashion to polls. For example: "what's your favorite kind of pizza topping?" or "what's your favorite brand of cars?" - of course this needs to be applied to adventure-topics. As in: the thread asks for your favorite something.

People (and even a few moderators moving threads, if I remember correctly) seem to (start to) think it's meant for popular threads (like, threads with lots of response). Moving those threads to a different forum-area makes no sense in my opinion and just confuses readers (therefore coming close to "locking" the thread since interest - and participation - is drawn away from it) - all that shouldn't be done to "good" threads, whether they're popular or not.

So, any clear-ups? I know this doesn't exactly look like a very important issue, but it's been crossing my mind since I first read one of these misunderstandings and noticed they were apparently pretty spread out.

OR am I just being stupid here (and the forum-subtitle is very unclear in that case) and that area is (for whatever reason I can't see at the moment) in fact for threads with lots of interest and responses?

[don't try it on Internet Explorer]

So, I threw this page together based on the StarCraft 2 web-developer kit that was recently released. I'm no web-designer, but I like to work on pages every now and then. This is what came up with, how about some quick break-downs - how did you like the visual-appearance and would you agree that this very simple navigation-layout works the best in order to not complicate matters or confuse the user?

I did it with Dreamweaver using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Final note and a question: don't try it on Internet Explorer, it might not only block the JavaScript, but it will not display the images with alpha-channel correctly. I know this is a flaw, but I *need* the alpha-channel. Can somebody help here? I used .png for those images since I know of no other extension with alpha-channel that is usual on the net (.tif wouldn't work, I guess), Firefox displays it all correctly though.

http://www.freewebs.com/test-my-site

I know it's not much, but what the heck. Try to reload/refrest the page, too, the little unit-image will change randomly - just a little doodah.

Also, ignore the Features- and Links-boxes, different content will be put in there later.

Oh, and, no, I don't want to start a StarCraft 2 site, it's just a mock-up.

EDIT: Keep in mind, the graphics are mostly taken from the kit, just photoshopped/arranged into the page, I don't want to be looked upon as a ripper or whatever.

[REVELATION]

REVELATION

Entry for MAGS-contest 09/2007

Revelation is a stealth/action jump'n'run game. It also allows you to create your own levels easily!

Features:

- Tile-based jump'n'run game with stealth-action elements...
- No boring story...
- Different weapons...
- Easily alarmed enemies with a waypoint-system...
- Two-dimensional parallax-scrolling in three layers...
- Easy to create your own levels, as many as you want...
- Music

Please do read the readme-file, it contains vital information:

CONTROLS

Move the player to the left or right with the left and
right cursor keys respectively.

When you stand next to a ledge, a flashing arrow will
point upwards. Once you see this symbol, you can climb
up by pressing the up cursor key.

To jump down a ledge, just walk over the edge. You are
a trained professional when it comes to moving, so even
longer jumps don't hurt you.

Hit the number keys to select a weapon, a little indicator
will pop up in the top-right corner of the screen showing
the different weapons you have availabe and which one is
currently selected.

In order to use a weapon, hit the space key.


TACTICS

In each level, it's your objective to find the way out of
the enemy structure. There are lots of enemy guards between
you and the exit, though, so prepare for a challenging fight.

The guards outnumber you and your fire power by a huge margin,
but they aren't exactly smart, that's your chance. Try to
sneak up on them. In addition to the weapons you can find in
the level, you will always be equipped with a knife. Use it to
overpower the enemy or try to solve levels without even being
seen at all. Be cautious when fighting though, the guards
aren't bright, but they will be alarmed when they see a dead
comrade.

Most likely, your knife will be your most preferred weapon,
there are, however, situations which are extremely hard to
survive without resorting to the range attack of guns.


LEVEL EDITOR

If you want to create your own levels for 'Revelation', simply
create a new text-file in the game directory (you can use any
text-editor such as Notepad or Word). The first line has to be
the width of the level in tiles, the second line is the height.
The rest of the file is the level. If you are new to concept of
tiles, feel free to open the two example levels called
"level1.txt" and "level2.txt".

In the level, certain symbols mean certain tiles in the game.
For the tiles, it's best to find these out by taking a good
look at the example levels, other symbols are: P for the place
the player starts, E for enemy, H for a health potion, 2 for
the pistol, 3 for the uzi and F for the finish, the goal the
player has to reach to beat the level.

Make sure that you have the correct dimensions of the level
in the first two lines of the file, otherwise the game might
crash or return unexpected results.

In order to test and play your own creation, save it, then
open the "levels.txt" list and simply add a line at the end
of it with your filename. Now it should appear in the main
menu of 'Revelation'.

Be creative, have fun and make sure to upload and announce your
own levels to share them with others.


CREDITS

Programming, Art, Animation and Music done by Jan Simon aka
'dkh' in one busy month.

DOWNLOAD LINK

Technical help needed again, sorry guys.

This is really strange, I have used PS 7 since years and it always worked fine.

Today I start it up, accidentally hit CTRL+Q and it just disappears (I checked, it quit really quickly, the task was gone as well in the task-manager, so it was really gone, not just minimized etc), I find that strange, am not really sure what happened, so I start it up again, wait until it's started up completely (after the splash-screen disappears etc) and hit CTRL+Q again and it really works again. PS quits.

Allright, no problem. But whenever I try to start it now, it quits instantly while the splash-screen is still showing. Can't access the program at all. ImageReady still works, but when I try to jump from IR to PS, it says "Can't jump to PS because it doesn't respond".

What is up with that? I find it heavily strange to have such an instant-quit hotkey in the first place, but how can it ruin the program in that way?

I already tried a restart, didn't change a thing.

Well, since several weeks now, my computer resets itself while booting. I start it, it loads windows and then usually resets. Starts again, most of the times resets few seconds later again, and usually the third time it works. First it wasn't as bad (reseted once, then worked okay), but since six or seven days now, it needs up to three resets. One time, it even froze while the windows xp-logo was displayed with that little loading-bar underneath it with those three blue rectangles going through. Two times now, it switched completely off and I couldn't turn it on without switching the power-switch on the back of the computer off, waiting 30 seconds or something and switching it on again.

I did a virus check and nothing turned up, I have a good firewall installed in both the router and the computer and pretty good protection, so I kinda doubt it's a virus. In fact, I somehow doubt it's software related at all. The computer is kinda dusty, because I let it run with one of the sides removed, I should probably clean it out, but on the other hand, how would that cause the machine to shut off only while starting up (same applies to the cooler, I first thought it might be the fan not working, but then, why would it only not work at startup - after windows has finally started up, my computer works for hours without problems). The power connection seemed a little loose as well, but again, why would it only be loose at startup and not later on?

Anybody have the same problems?

Thanks for your help.

[HERE]

...and tell me what you think about it.

The back-story: I wrote this hymn/song-hybrid as a birthday present for a friend of mine who turned nineteen a few days ago. He's a member in a rowing-club from our school and he's completely crazy about the sport and this club. One night he had a little gathering at his house, I was pretty drunk and told him and everybody else, I'd write and produce a hymn for his club. Next day nobody remembered except me and when his birthday came, I got the idea to make it a gift.

Anyways, it's not meant to be a hymn in any kind of classical sense, but rather like a catchy tune (similar to the hymns for the handball/soccer world cups etc.) - I was heavily inspired by a german band when writing the hook-melody for it, but I think I've changed enough notes in order for it to be legal - and even if I haven't, I don't want to sell it or anything (around 40% of the people who listened to the piece at his birthday-party noticed the reference), just so you know.

I wrote, performed, recorded and mastered it all by myself - HERE is the link!

Hey,

I just bought a new effects pedal for my guitar for 160â,¬. The seller (99% positive rating, power-seller) only accepts paypal or credit card. I want to pay through credit card and wrote him an email and he wants me to pay through allpay.eu - is that safe and normal?

Sorry, I'm not really a frequent eBayer and I'm a little bit unsure at the moment. Any clear-ups would be highly appreciated.

[Miez]

Through heavy pixel-pushing, I've managed to draw a good-looking tank-body, but now it seems near impossible to me to add a cannon on top of it. Whatever I try, it looks awful and destroys the image. That's why I'm looking for advice on how to improve the sprite and how to add a cannon onto it. Paint-overs are especially welcome!

Here is the work-in-progress sprite of the tank:




And this is how the tank is supposed to look like in a different resolution and from a different perspective (credit goes to Miez for this picture):



Thanks ahead of time!