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I think I found a minor bug in the original DeNGVaT code. It's probably fixed in the enwer version (I'm sticking weith the old version for various reasons) but thought I'd mention it for the record.

Code: ags

String test = Global.Gets("cutscene_waiting"); Display("1 waiting:'%s'",test);	
String what = Global.Gets("rightClickedObject"); 				
String test2 = Global.Gets("cutscene_waiting"); Display("2 waiting:'%s'",test2);	

result: the second line ERASES the content of 'cutscene_waiting'

workaround: this only happens if 'rightClickedObject' has not been defined. Adding Global.Sets("rightClickedObject",""); at an earlier stage fixes it.

EDIT:
It seems I spoke too soon. On further examination, it appears that, in some circumstances, TWO globals can be stored with the same name. So when you then search for that global, you may access the wrong value. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

LATER EDIT:
It's possible that the previous problem was caused by a line in the 'find' function. If anyone's interested I'll post more details.

Thanks. At least there's no sinister reason. I knew Rosemary and Gordon were not young, so I was afraid something more serious had happened. Still, I'll mourn the site's passing. I wonder where the regular posters have gone? They had some high quality people on board.

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

That's the site I was looking for! Thanks!

It's a huge pity if Quandaryland has really gone. And evern more worrying if nobody even noticed.

[edit]: how reliable is 'downforeveryoneorjustme'? I don't see any evidence that it actually works. 'quandaryland.com' fails, 'http://www.quandaryland.com/'; fails, but 'www.quandaryland.com/' passes. Seems inconsistent, or at least misleading.

Recently I've been unable to reach Quandaryland.com (the Australian adventure game review site). Is it just me? I Googled and can't find any reference to a problem.

The setup files are corrupted. Could you fix that?

[edit] they were still uploading. They're uploaded now, and they seem to download OK as far as I can tell.

[EDIT: this original link in this post is now redundant: see further down for updated link]

Particular questions:

1. This setup installs to a different folder from before. Does Vista still need admin privileges? Does it install on Win9x?

2. I've also uploaded a simple zipped version. Does it work in the Linux AGS engine?

3. As before, the BIG TWO QUESTIONS are: what about the game makes you want to play more?

4. ... and what makes you lose interest and play less?

Please note, as before that this is NOT COMPLETE and it is NOT POLISHED. I cannot guarantee that it will work at all! The dialog is rough. There is no music. Most of the 'look at' objects don't respond with much. Characters' idling animations are too fast. Most clues and cutscenes (after the first part) are still not there. And so on and on. But at this stage I'm more concerned with the general direction: creating a strong foundation on which to build.

If the response to this version is good then I'll settle down to adding content, and future test versions will not be public. If the response is not so good then I'll keep improving it until the response IS good.

What's different with this version:

A.
The first part is fully playable, sort of. That is, parts 1-7 out of 180. Actually the whole thing is playable if you are VERY determined (and make liberal use of Ctrl-O and Ctrl-P, which will not be available in the final version), but only the first little bit has all the regular clues and stuff. Basically up to when Jean Valjean leaves jail.

B.
There's a new intro and you get to see the central character, Peri. Hopefully it should be easier to see who you are and what you're supposed to do.

C.
There's a new help system, linked to the intro (you'll see what I mean when you play it). Just press F1 at any time for another clue.

D.
Navigation should be easier than before. Press the space bar at any time to see. And the map has been improved (press M).

E.
Most of the time since the last test version was spent on tidying up behind-the-scenes code. All the delays are due to silly little bugs that are incredibly tedious to track down. I'm a VERY slow programmer (coding does not come naturally to me!) so you might not see a huge difference in functionality. Or maybe you'll see a big difference - I can't remember how much was working on the previous version.

F.
And there are various other little bits and pieces. Like rewriting the help page, fixing the tinting easter egg thingy, making it easier to hit ESCAPE to skip stuff, and so on.


A note to Les Miserables purists.

This game tries to stay close to the book. Unfortunately, the first part of the game (the bit you can play here) is where I've had to make the twist the story a bit. I haven't actually CHANGED anything, but have focused on characters who have very minor roles in the book. I've given them tasks that I think are representative of what Hugo was saying, even if they don't do exactly what is in the book.

The problem is that the book starts with about ten chapters where nothing dramatic happens, and later has flashbacks to the battle of Waterloo, which is VERY dramatic, and is one of those things I did not want to ignore since it's obviously important to Victor Hugo, but it would be VERY time consuming to animate a big battle. So I hope you can forgive me for the approach I've taken.

I haven't actually changed anything, but I've stretched a few things: like turning one of Valjean's sister's children into the main character, and inventing a little scheme of Napoleon's that is there to represent several things that Hugo wrote, even though the exact scheme itself may not have been historical. The alternative was to completely ignore Napoleon, but he's important to Hugo so he's important to me.

After Valjean's release the book doesn't present as many problems, so the game will follows the story more closely.

One last minor technical question: I'm curious to know. When you start the game up (especially if started up straight from setup) do you see an ordinary mouse over the screen? The mouse should be invisible for the intro sequence. If you can see a mouse on the opening animation it means you don't have control over the game, you can't hit 'escape' or anything and that's frustrating. Minimize the window (I assume you see it in a window at the start?) then restore it and you have control over the game. It's one of those little things I'll need to look into for later.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I think a bit more context is required, such as whne the problem occurs a bit more specifically that "sometimes". Is there any room/situation when you can always make it happen?

Not consistently. It's not a major issue, so I can't make it a high priority to trace (not yet anyway). I was just hoping it would ring bells with someone else. If it still happens when the game is nearly finished then I'll post more details.

Any idea what would trigger this error message?

"Warning: MoveCharacter called for 'Ego' with walk speed 0"

The error only comes up sometimes, and I'm pretty sure I never set ego's walk speed as '0'.

Question: any plans for allowing wildcards? I have a couple of thousand globals, grouped into names like

Code: ags

Global.Set("1_person6_object23",1);
or
Global.Set("1_person7_object99",2);

I frequently reset groups of globals, depending on their initial number. At present I search every global, use 'Contains" and hope that the initial number is not repeated elsewhere in some other global. but it would be nice to be able to write

Code: ags

Global.Set("1_*",0); 
or 
Global.SetGroup("1_",0);

Any chance...?

EDIT: if you're wondering why I don't just use arrays, it's because I pass a lot of data between different games. I have fewer bugs if I stick to one data type. Using SSH's globals is the most flexible option.

All I can say is thanks again for the comments. There probably isn't much point in asking for further comment until the next test version is ready, which will hopefully address the main issues. I hope to have it online in the first week in July.

Thanks for your feedback. It's very much appreciated.

If your goal is to immerse people into this world, they definitely need to 'see' who they are and be able to physically interact with people. 

Actually my goal isn't to immerse people in the world, but to provide a way to explore ideas. But that is a whole other topic. Regarding the need for a visible avatar, the new intro will go a long way to solving that problem.

Right now the game plays like a slideshow where you, as God, listen in on conversations rather than directly pose questions to people.

This is largely because most of the dialog is not yet in the game. Once the clues and secondary clues are in place, it will become more obvious that most of the conversations are in fact puzzles. Once the combination dialog is in place (what happens when you click on A then B) it will be mnore obious that you can ask questions, but not directly. 

many, many of these screens hold no value to the player at all and many of them have no interactivity.

Again, that will change when the dialog is all in place. Almost every scene, and over half of the objects are essential to the game. And everything will be combinable with everything.

Removing hotspots like 'tea kettle, sign, bottles' if there is no way to interact with them at all

As Is aid, the 'look at' code will make everything interactive. One of the many reasons for the invisible avatar is to make the game MORE interactive. You will be able to combine any character (there are 300 in the game) with any character or any object (80 scenes multiplied by up to 15 hotspots).

c) if you get confused, where was it?
When the game AUTOMATICALLY whisked me away from the conversation at the beginning for clicking on the hint.  I could not return to the place

That problem should be largely solved by the various improvements suggested by Storygamer and others. Better map, optional arrows, more consistent naming, etc.

the ponderous ramblings of the guy at the library did nothing to help me.

Those will make more sense when the other dialog is in place. And with the new intro to give the game more context. And I'm also thinking of having three buttons on the helpp page for three levels of clues: hints (as at present), strong hints (where the character says plainly "I need to see X") and handholding hints ("right click on A then right click on B").

some of the screens have illogical exits, like when I enter a room from the left and clicking on the right of the screen returns me to the left room

I'm sure the game has hundreds of bugs like that. At this stage fixing one bug usually creates two more in unexpected places.  I'll focus on fixing the many small bugs after the big stuff is done. (They are small from the technical point of view, not necessarily small for the poor long suffering end user's point of view!) I'm really grateful to you being patient enough to spend so much time on it.

Probably the best thing now is for me to work on the big stuff (the four items noted earlier) and see if that reduces the big problems. I'll then upload another test version for anyone generous enough to give it another quick look.

Thanks again.

[What this game REALLY needs is some kind of manual to explain how to play the game.]

I second everything markbilly said

That's very good, as it gives me a clear direction.

The next test version will have three main changes:
1. A new intro, where you meet Ego, and the goal etc. are made very clear. I'm really pleased with how this intro is going - it should give a very strong direction to the game.
2. The main clues will be in place (that's what I was planning to do anyway). This still won't be ALL the dialog, but it will be the most important stuff.
3. An improved map, so you more easily jump to different places in Paris (once you've been there). That was the easiest part, I added that yesterday.

I was left just randomly clicking on loads of things, whilst every single character said they 'felt watched'.

When every characters says "I'm being watched" what you're seeing is the first topic in the default "nothing else to say" dialog, when the user clicks on the wrong person. When the clues and others stuff are ready then that will only be a very small part of the mix.

Okay, now if I understand you correctly, what you really want to know are the flaws--what needs to be improved, right?

Please!

- As markbilly said, there is a complete lack of direction for the player, and this is very bad.  I actually don't mind an invisible character but it's difficult to play a game when you have no clue what your goal is.

Thanks. This is obviously very important! (Wasn't it number one on Ron Gilbert's famous top ten list or something?) I think I was trying to be too "clever" (in a bad way), making the main character a mystery, and making gameplay something to discover. Hopefully the new intro will go a long way to fixing that.

When I try to use the in-game hint system (kudos for wanting to include one, btw), it says "The Conventionary might give you a clue" and teleports me instantly to some library scene in which I have even less success than before figuring out what I'm supposed to do.

Hopefully that sort of thing will become clearer as the dialog is tightened up.

The hardest part of the game is the very first part, as everything is so new. And it deals with the most complex situation (nineteen years, five major characters, events that are not in the original book, or rather, are only barely hinted at, oh and the Napoleonic wars!) I may need to make that part super easy just to give users a reason to continue.

What this game REALLY needs is some kind of manual to explain how to play the game.

That's interesting. The gameplay is actually much simpler than other games (there are only two possible actions: double click for info, or right click-right click to combine any person with anything, anywhere in the game). But I didn't make it very clear, or why it matters. It's summarized in one paragraph in the help page, but I'll need to make it a lot clearer. Actually, I think this may be more a result of the general lack of direction, so should be greatly improved by the new intro and adding clues.

Give a specific area the title "South Side of the River", display that title when the player is there, and make EVERY exit in other rooms that leads to that place say the same thing on the hotspot--"South Side of the River".

I'll do that.

Make the arrow invisible until the player presses a certain key, and when that key is pressed, the arrow appears.

Good idea. I'll do that too.

half the time, a statement that is supposed to be made by one character is seen as being made by a different one. ... at one point, I double-clicked a person to hear their thoughts, and the screen actually scrolled to the other side of the area in order to display a completely different character's thoughts.

Sorry about that. I appreciate you putting up with that. That's one of those things that looks big to the user, but code wise is pretty minor (I think!) so I won't be worrying too much about that until later. At this stage, I'm more concerned with the general direction (what are we trying to do) rather than whether it runs smoothly.

The game needs some kind of audio component.  Appropriate music would be great

Music will be a VERY big part of the final game experience. But it won't be added until near the end of the testing process.

-MINOR ISSUES-I can't find my way back to that scene no matter what I do.

That should be solved by your excellent arrows idea.

I tried to "tint" the distressed woman, curious to see what this would do.  All it did was turn her into a black sillhouette--no matter which color I picked.

That's an unsupported feature But I suppose I should add some kind of instructions before the game is released.

-The screen-scrolling is not intuitive--half the time I'm not sure if I've scrolled the screen as far as it will go or not.

That's interesting. The way it's supposed to work is, it either scrolls or it doesn't. And that's how you know. I'll be interested to see if people have the same comment after the arrows are added.

Thanks again for the feedback. It looks like I have plenty to be going on with. To summarize, the next test version will have:
1. Improved map (done)
2. Arrow option to tell where you are/where you can go (I'll add that today)
3. New intro sequence (should get that roughly finished tomorrow)
4. Main clue dialog added (should take about another week)

Thanks for your patience!

Thanks for the feedback. That's exactly the angle I was looking for. It's what I suspected would be the case, but I'd be interested in seeing if this is the general response.

The real reason for an invisible avatar was the scaling bug in 2.72. Smooth scaling creates a black fringe around characters. It's not noticeable on a dark background, but on a white background it makes smooth scaling unusable. The big is fixed in 3.0 (which uses a completely different method of scaling), but 3.0 does not have Linux support. So I removed Ego and rewrote the back story to make her invisible (for now: the next game will have scenes that are designed to not require scaling).

If others agree with you (as I suspect they will) then I'll need to give this a lot of hard thought. I'd probably add a scene near the beginning where ego can appear in the first person and be given some kind of quest, allowing her to be invisible for the remainder of the story.  But it would take a lot of thinking, to somehow do this while still remaining faithful to the original novel.

Thanks for the feedback. Anything at all is very welcome!

I still don't know what you actually want us to say...

I'm interested in initial reactions, the kind of thing that makes someone interested (or not!!) in the first minute of play:

a) does it work acceptably on your system?
b) is it a real problem that the avatar is invisible? (In later games the avatar will play a greater role, but if this is a real problem I could bring them into it at an earlier point)
b) if you get bored, when did you decide to turn it off?
c) if you get confused, where was it?
d) if you felt attracted to the game, what attracted you?
e) if you decided not to download it, why not?
f) if you expected one thing and were surprised (either good or bad), why?

Any feedback on the above will be gratefully received!

[edit by darth]

I've added a couple of screenshots below above, but I'm not really interested in what people think of them (I'm too exhausted to change everything again!). I'm also not looking to promote the game, or give a "clear outline of the plot" as the rules require. (Though the entire plot and half the script can be downloaded here.

It's my own fault for not reading the rules - it's not the first time I've posted before thinking. I'm not promoting the game, I don't want feedback on art or script. I just need feedback on the new approach to gameplay (it's a new kind of game) and on how it plays on different platforms. There isn't a forum for that kind of question, hence I should not be here.

edit by darth screenshots moved to first post!

[whether it can be made to work in Linux]

I just uploaded the first test version of my game. I'd appreciate any comments.

Warning: it's work in progress (= untested and broken), missing important parts (like key dialog and most cutscenes, including the end), and so it is no fun to play.

So I'm not looking for bugs or problem areas (I can find those on my own than you!) I'm more interested in the big issue of what, in general, attracts people, what bores or confuses people, and whether it can be made to work in Linux (I don't have access to a Linux box).

Thanks in advance for any comments. More details, and download link: http://lesmisgame.blogspot.com/

Edit: I haven't added a separate zip file for Linux, but can if you wish.

Screenshots

I was reading this thread on a 2.72 bug fixed in 3.0: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=34833.0

Is there a list somewhere of all such known bugs in 2.72? So that those who still use 2.72 (e.g. for Linux reasons) know to avoid them?

Ohhh, I see now. So what I have to do is, edit all Roger sprites in a paint program, and then save them. Then import them into AGS?

If you just want to change the plain color of a hat or shirt there are other ways.

method 1: If you're using 8 bit color, just reserve a palette entry for the color that changes. You can then change that color in code, at runtime, to anything you want. (I think! I don't use 8 bit, but I imagine that's how it could work?)

method 2: Create one full body character, then add the hat and coat as separate characters. Use the follow character command so the hat and coat always stay at the same place as ego. (Search the manual for EAGERNESS and CHARTOFOLLOW and the halo example) Use character.Tint to change the color of the hat and coat to anything you want at runtime.

method 3: Do what I do. All my characters are pure white with black outlines. I have hotkeys so you can use character.Tint to change any character's color at any time to anything you want.

Thanks!
[edit after trying it:]

So basically there is no internal way to tell if a character is tinted. So we need to keep a record every time 'tint' is used. Fair enough.

character.RemoveTint will crash a game if called when a character has no tint (in 2.72). Is there any way to tell if a character is tinted?

Or a way to test if RemoveTint will crash the game, then not run it (like testing for null or something)?