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Yes, there are still two more days. If you really need more time than that though, please reply and I'll grant the extension.

Great entries so far, by the way. Please keep 'em coming!

I know, I know, Inkoddi. I have been making music using famitracker myself. :p

I just don't want everybody to have to download a certain program in order to enter, then nobody would. So I tried to get as close as possible with standard MIDI limitations. If you have a better idea on how to do that, I'm all ears!

[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 love the porn pong games and the emulators (these are history...) by Bloodlust software, so I'm more than happy to hear that this is still in progress.

I actually have all the art assets for a re-made low res version of the first pong game but never found a programmer. Has anyone tried pong with AGS yet?

Yours truly. :p

Wow, this came totally unexpected!

I want to congratulate both others for excellent entries, though. When I first heard Funkmasts song, I thought "well, there go any chances", then when I heard thomas' entry I thought the same again...

Funkmast, your tune represented the perfect backalley feeling I think, really well done! The only thing that wasn't absolutely awesome was a lack of a melody, somehow. I know you did some chromatic stuff in the end but I was missing something memorable. So when I worked on my entry, that's where I started... :p

Thomas, your entry was just amazingly well produced, you are an awesome singer and sound extremely professional! I don't think I ever heard anything like this for a tune competition actually! The minor gripe I had with your entry was really just that I think it wasn't exactly what Phemar was looking for  (I feared the same for my song, though), I think he meant a more punk-emo-indie-like thing (such as the bands he listed, Blink 182 for example) and you delivered somewhat more of a country style.

Anyways, will start a new competition once I have an idea!

Ha, this is hilarious. Such a fresh perspective on Microsoft products! :

[Here]

Here's my entry for the second topic. Now, it isn't exactly upbeat brass and neither is it backalley/sleazy style but I hope it's still okay - after all you've given us three possible topics, where at least the first one is defined pretty blurry.

Here's the situation for the tune:

Our protagonist, a soon-to-be-retired detective, has just survived the grand finale of our adventure in which he single-handedly gunned down an entire gang of armed Columbian drug dealers in Tijuana. Their leader is lying over his desk, face down, with a bullet in his head.
The detective takes a deep breath as the adrenaline starts to fade away. Just seconds ago there was wild shooting, now there is silence. He throws his Magnum out of the window, lets himself fall against the wall behind him, sliding down. Tears are shooting in his eyes.

He couldn't save her.

I should have phrased that better, I know what it does and when it's useful, it's just that I really use the remainder operator % so rarely that it's not a big hassle to type in the few more characters. I use *= and /= often though!

Of course, if Chris implements *= and /=, it wouldn't be a problem (I suspect this should be pretty easy to get into AGS) to just add the %= as well, at the very least for consistency's sake!

Code: ags

int a, b;

a += b; // is the same as a = a + b

a -= b; // is the same as a = a - b

a *= b; // is the same as a = a * b

a /= b; // is the same as a = a / b;

a %= b; // is the same as a = a % b;

I personally never saw a use for %= though.

As you say, the "scientific" term for this is a "dead end" and I'm sure that it's actually not very popular these days, not even with adventure-game nerds. One of these things that doesn't quite count as nostalgic - it's just so annoying and lame.

In addition to densming's suggestion, I would be for a simple boolean option that can be set via the AGS options with a checkbox switching AGS's "meddling" with keyboard input at all. What this means is, if switched off, the editor would no longer add the spaces after commas and it wouldn't move the closing brackets } left one tab-space automatically (that still irritates me), so it would be all like typing in Notepad. And by default it could stay on for all users who know and love these functions.

Small glitch: the auto-complete seems to get confused for elements that begin with an underscore - other signs might affect the behavior as well, didn't check.

Assume:

Code: ags

struct TObject
{
      int _life;
      int life;
};

Now, when you type:

Code: ags

TObject test;

test.

...the list will pop up and list both elements correctly, but when you start typing the _life element, it will not select the right one, it won't complete the element at all.

It should be:

Code: ags

if ( whoisplayer == 1 )

Apart from that it should work if you put it in the right place (and whoisplayer is a correct variable).

In that shot it only seems to affect one model - if you want the same (have that effect for one character/sprite only), couldn't you just draw a nice animation and use that?

EDIT: You say you want it on the whole screen but that would be very similar to the transitions that AGS comes with...

While we're talking about these, I have often noticed the lack of *= and /* respectively and thus would welcome their addition. Can't imagine it can be much of a time investment to implement them?

I think the problem is that this block of code:

Code: ags

if(sec < 60 && sec > 1)
	return String.Format("%d seconds", sec);
if(sec == 1)
	return "1 second";
if(sec < 1)
	return "no time at all";

Will in every case EXCEPT that the parameter sec is => 60 terminate the function. The return keyword not only returns a variable but also stops the rest of the function from running, TygerWulf!

With 3.1 Final, when I load the demo game, run it and start a dialog, I can erase the black background with the mouse cursor!

Apart from that it seemed fine.

ANIWZCS2Service [...] something required by Windows

So you may want to see if there's an AniWZCS2 or something service running?

There's your problem and your solution...

So, they failed at making a movie from a video-game that actually had potential for a movie.

Let's see what they did to Far Cry...

I don't think any of this is in ANY relation to what it would bring us as AGS users. If you want your game to be that secure, go ahead and write your own engine. After all, AGS is a freeware tool and 98% of the games made with it are freeware, too. And for these games, it just doesn't make much sense to defend them like a fortress. Also, both music and all the art including the fonts can ALWAYS be ripped anyways, so the only thing this would prevent is that somebody took a look at your project itself or the code. And even if it's all encrypted and hidden away, a good hacker will always be able to gain access and publish a tool that helps others, it's like anti-virus software, it improves security but isn't totally secure at the same time. Adding such protection, in fact, may work counter-effectively, meaning it will actually motivate hackers to try it after all (much like alcohol laws in the US, where it's forbidden to drink under 21 and still minors get more and much worse drunk than where the age limit is 16 or 18).

Of course, if there were no other more important things to add to or improve in AGS, I would fully support dealing with this, but I'm afraid there are and all the ideas so far sound like they would take a huge amount of time and, as I said in the beginning, that does not stand in any relation to the use.

Was there even one instance where somebody's game was actually hacked? I never heard of anything like this and so I have to say I believe what the people suggesting this are doing here is satisfying some kind of technical fetish rather than actually thinking of and trying to help the end user.

No offense intended, please, I'm just trying to argument against this, please don't feel attacked. If enough people support this or anyone can supply me a good reason why it in fact does make good sense (enough to even come close to justifying the cost it takes to implement it all) then I'll be a supporter, too.