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[...] it seems to me that nobody should be using D3D anyways.

Please don't make it look like your specific problem (which could be due to a wide variety of reasons, outdated drivers or hardware failure for example) is more common than it is. There is not a single other person who experiences the same problem as you are. In fact, a lot of modern PCs and laptops running Windows 7 have trouble with the DirectDraw mode. Don't spread rumors to developers which could result in them being negatively affected!

Dunno if it's a known issue but you can still hit TAB and get the old inventory. I personally also would hide the cursor during cinematics - in the intro with the talking mad scientist for example it's annoying because you can hover over the character and a distracting label pops up.

SuperDre wasn't talking about the overall visual quality of your game at all, he was merely pointing out the huge (yes, it is huge) difference in art skill between your posted backgrounds. If it isn't the case that the ship scene was drawn recently and the other work of yours is way older or something I would also doubt that both these were made by you.

Wow, some really mindblowingly awesome stuff there! Breaks my heart to hear that these are all 'failed' attempts but an excellent decision to put these up for everybody. Very inspiring! Thanks.

God damn this is frustrating to read. After 60 replies we are not a single step further. How long will it take until the last member realizes that it's just hopeless?

All you need is SetGameSpeed (60);

I run all my games at 100 FPS personally. Layabout is right about the frame rates but those are film frame rates. While the eye can't tell the single frames at these speeds, if we run a video game at the same rate the controls will feel very sluggish.

EDIT: And the newer AGS versions really aren't slow at all. Of course considering you hadn't even heard of such a basic command (that's right there in the manual for anybody that looks for 'speed') doesn't exactly make it look like you know what you're talking about...

There is some kind of assumption that FPS games are the 'mainstream', and that they are the sole genre dominating the medium of video games, so I dug out some games sales figures from 2010 to see how true this was:



Source

By my count, there are five FPS games in there (six if you include New Vegas, but as far as I'm aware that's generally classed as an RPG?)

Your statistics are console-only, not sure if you noticed that.

This is very enjoyable. Kinda addicting actually. I want more levels!

I'm wondering, how did you go about implementing the slopes Radiant? I can see they aren't working 100% all the time but it works out okay. Do you have special 'end slope' tiles or something?

Oh ok, well, it's your choice.

First impressions:

LEFT and RIGHT controls feel sluggish, have the rodent accelerate and decelerate faster. You know these ice-blocks in lots of similar games that reduce your traction? Right now it feels like you're constantly on these. I DID get used to that after a while but it isn't very precise.

Allow the rodent to jump through the top of the screen instead of bumping against it. Not only is that the cause for many frustrating deaths, it also doesn't feel 'right' to me. Hard to explain.

If possible, try and fix the problems with getting stuck on ramps when you're not jumping and being stuck in walls when jumping into these.

There are some questionable level design decisions such as death traps in there but with additional levels that can be rectified.

Re-design the vanishing blocks so it's more obvious when they'll appear and disappear. Right now, when there's only a lower part of the block visible, you fall through them - and in general it's hard to tell if a block is appearing or disappearing. Maybe there's another design that clearly shows when the block is solid and when it isn't.

For reference, this is how Keen did it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGIDVLls1Xc


Apart from that, it's a great jump'n'run game! Very impressive and fun!

Dang, another game I would have loved to record my first impressions on but it's also made with an old version of AGS that doesn't support the Direct3D drivers that are necessary for recording with FRAPS. Never knew so many people were still using ancient 2.something versions

I'll just play it and write my thoughts down in this thread then. Looking forward to playing it!

I still don't see a link? If you uploaded it to the AGS games section, it is etiquette to post a link to the page in this thread!

Looking forward to giving the game a try!

EDIT: Now it's there, thanks!

You forgot the link!

Or maybe it's still uploading?

Ah ok, damn! :p It's looking very promising.

I do have Camtasia Studio but that doesn't work with my USB microphone. I have a 'normal' musician's microphone as well but for that I don't have a stand and that means I'd have to hold it in my hand the whole time and play with the other which doesn't work out at all.

Would have loved to record my first impressions of your game in a commentated video but it turns out you made the game with a very old version of AGS (pre-3.0) and that doesn't support the Direct3D driver which is necessary in order to use FRAPS to record.

Any chance you could maybe upload a build made with AGS 3.0 or newer (projects should convert without trouble IIRC)?

Very true, about the

Spoiler

EXIT puzzle

[close]

I noticed the description of the magnets actually contained a second sentence giving a hint. I over-read it while talking and then complained about it in my playthrough. That was obviously mislead and not relevant.

Yeah, it's the same deal for dynamic arrays unfortunately.

We could really use a std::vector like dynamic array class that would take care of all this stuff - not only for in-build types. Doesn't exist yet though to the best of my knowledge.

There's no way to do this for static arrays. At some point you declare the array (int array[20]) and in there is the size of the array. Do this:

Code: ags

#define ARRAY_SIZE 20

int array[ARRAY_SIZE];

// now you have the size of the array in AFFARY_SIZE

No offence to dkh but reading the dialogue would have helped you solve those puzzles easily...

I clearly acknowledged that in my cast! I was talking at the same time, trying to make points and all. I should've not talked when any dialogue was on the screen at all (like I and any other half-decent let's player does with voiced games, you don't ever want to talk over voices). Then I would've been able to read it all and not been as confused.

And besides, according to You Tube there have been just 36 views (almost certainly swarm members or people who intentionally wanted to look "under the hood" of the game), so I think the chances of the beta version stealing the thunder of our official release are safely remote.

Oh yeah, I didn't even think about that aspect. As far as I'm concerned, when something is released publicly, you're allowed to screengrab it and talk over it unless the developers clearly state they don't want such a thing (but then they wouldn't release the material publicly in the first place). If you ever want me to take the material down, I'll do it in a heartbeat of course!

As always, please let us know WHAT kind of error you are getting? Is it really when running the game or when trying to compile?

In that line there is an '=' missing but I remember you actually being too lazy to copy (!) in the correct code from your script before so I guess that might not be the problem.

Thanks for the feedback on my Youtube playthrough!

About the objective: in case the goal for the player to escape out of the entire structure is clearly set up in the beginning of the game, I don't think need a reminder every time we enter a room. That's fine. What I meant was, in the guard room with the umbrella, there is a guard and a huge area of sunlight. Two immediate obstacles to our progress. But as a player I'm not really sure what the guard 'means'. Will the guard see me when I just somehow move through the sunlight? He is on a different level and looks like he'd be looking over the edge of the building more than down. You also start to wonder why you'd want to escape to the outside when in all rooms with windows or openings you can see that it's bright outside - which you don't like as a vampire. Then in the boss room, you enter and there's the soldiers aiming at the door. But we don't know why they are doing that. We find out after solving a puzzle but it's confusing up to that point. The number of small confusing elements like that adds up over the second half of the game and creates that 'aimless' feel I was getting for a while there.

About the drop-down bar that shouldn't be there: in the guard room with the umbrella, during a cutscene where the probe was moving I moved the cursor to the top of the screen. That showed the bar crossed out and paused the game. After doing this once I then had the ability to pull the bar down at any point in time.

Obsolete cursor keys were W for walk to and L for look at.

Somebody on Youtube asked where to play the first installment, do you guys have a link? I wasn't able to find anything in the games database.