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Time got away from me (🥁) too, I'm afraid! Things are mostly working, but the art is rough and the dialog is very placeholder-y.

Gonna try and finish it off over September. It may no longer be a MAGS thing by then, but the theme was too fun to pass up.

@eri0o Ohhhhh yeah, that's much easier. Somehow forgot Transparency was a thing.

Thanks a bunch!

@Khris: Yup, there's a lot more than two kitchen states. ...But you're right, that variable shouldn't be factor any of the lights in anyway. It's about time I made the overhead lamp its own separate bool.

Anyway, noted! I've had a bit of practice drawing on room backgrounds. Might have a play around with that tomorrow.

I went with Overlays for this test as I was considering making some of the lights animated (flickering, waving if the overhead lamp gets bumped, etc.), and wasn't sure if redrawing the whole room for every frame would be too system intensive. I'll play around and see what I can come up with.

[Room Code]

I've got a room that uses graphical room overlays for faux lighting effects. Whenever the player turns a light on, the game takes a copy of the "lit" background, places "lit" versions of object sprites on it, copies the transparency of a lighting mask sprite, then applies the resulting image to an overlay to create the illusion of lighting.

This itself works fine. The problem arises when using Overlay.Remove() to turn a light off.

If the overlays are removed in the order they were created, the lights continue to work as expected. But if, say, you turn on the overhead light, then open the fridge, then turn the overhead light off and on again - everything breaks. Like so:

I've tested it with up to five lights and this only occurs when removing the non-newest overlay. My best guess is that the overlays are getting jumbled up, somehow? At the 0:18 mark you can just barely see the lamp's beam clip with the lamp itself, which implies it's gotten the fridge's z value of 220 instead of it's usual 1.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Relevant bits of code (apologies for the spaghetti, things got progressively more chaotic the more things I tried/deleted):

Room Code

Code: ags

Overlay* lLamp;
Overlay* lFridge;

function oSwitch_Interact()
{
  if (kitchenState!="lit"){
  oLamp.Visible=true;
  oLamp.Graphic=223;
  lLamp=TurnOn(lLamp, 224, 1);
  kitchenState="lit";
  
  }
  
  else{
  oLamp.Graphic=239;
  kitchenState="unlit";
  lLamp.Remove();
  }
}

function oFridge_Interact()
{
  if (!oFridge.isOpen()){
    oFridge.Open();
    lFridge=TurnOn(lFridge, 240, 220);
    oFridge.Baseline=220;
  }
    
  else{
    oFridge.Close();
    oFridge.Baseline=1;
    lFridge.Remove();
  }
}

Lighting Script

Code: ags

DynamicSprite* litBG;

///Grabs the full "lit" version of the scene for later use
DynamicSprite* PrepLight(){  
  DynamicSprite* lightBG = DynamicSprite.CreateFromBackground(1, 0, 0, 320, 240);
  DrawingSurface* surface = lightBG.GetDrawingSurface();
  
  for (int i = 0; i<Room.ObjectCount; i++)
  {
    int sprite;
    if (object[i].isOpen()) sprite = object[i].GetProperty("spriteOpen");
    else sprite = object[i].GetProperty("spriteClose");
    
    if (object[i].Visible && sprite>0){
      surface.DrawImage(object[i].X, object[i].Y -  Game.SpriteHeight[object[i].Graphic], sprite);
    }
  }
  
  surface.Release();
  return lightBG;
}


///Crops the lightBG to a sprite mask, applies it to an overlay, then returns the overlay.
Overlay* TurnOn(Overlay* light, int mask, int z){
  PrepLight();
  litBG=PrepLight();
  litBG.CopyTransparencyMask(mask);
  
  Overlay* toReturn = Overlay.CreateRoomGraphical(0, 0, litBG.Graphic, true, true);
  toReturn.ZOrder=z;
  return toReturn;
}

Duzzquest. I went to a programming workshop some fifteen years ago and the instructor used it as an example of what AGS could do. The rest is history!

...Come to think of it, I don't know if I ever finished playing it. Or maybe it was the sequel I got stuck on. 

[...]In terms of gamejams neither of the above would apply as you only get data on actual sales, not on every download. What I'm not certain of is whether data is logged if people make a donation for a game offered without charge - I've had people add an extra payment onto a sale a couple of times, but never actually had a donation on a game I've not charged for on Itch, so not sure how that works.

I can confirm it works the same way for the "pay what you want" model; it logs email, IP, country of residence, payment service, and (if the buyer is using Stripe) full name in the .csv. Also the domain of whatever website referred the buyer/donator to the game's store page, if any. (e.g., if you bought a game after clicking a link on these forums, it adds a note reading "from: adventuregamestudio.co.uk".)

None of this applies if your game is deliberately un-monetized, or if the user opts out of paying by clicking "no thanks, just take me to the downloads".

[Beat the Buzzer]

For someone's consideration, maybe yours:

Beat the Buzzer
Why didn't this episode air?
AGS Database || Itch.io || GameJolt

You've acquired a recording of a quiz show episode. The studio closed down. The episode never aired. And there's something wrong with the footage. Why haven't you thrown it out yet? Are you just that incapable of letting a question go unanswered?

A trivia/visual novel game in the style of found footage horror.

(Received a polish update about two months after its initial addition to the AGS database. The over-all story and gameplay flow is much the same, but there are a few more easter eggs and side-conversations for those who enjoy kind of thing.)

Please consider for:
- Best Non-Adventure Game Created in AGS
- Whatever else you feel's appropriate, excluding music (it's Kevin MacLeod)

There's Something in the Pipes
Ah, hell. It's blood.
AGS Database || Itch.io || GameJolt

You are the owner of a movie rental store. You have one hour until your shift. You need a shower. The shower is full of blood. Go figure.

A very serious plumbing simulator that straddles the line between silly and spooky. Bother your employee, talk to rubber ducks, and generally make a mess in your quest to unclog a drain.

Please consider for:
- Best Short Game
- Whatever else you feel's appropriate, excluding music (it's public domain)

Whew, okay - took advantage of the extension to tidy up the sound a bit. Updated the google drive, and also added a mirror on GameJolt (since that lets you link to unlisted pages. )

I got 404 error.

Bah, sorry about that - didn't realize unpublished itchio pages couldn't be linked to. Added a Google drive link in the meantime!

Nice to see some pretty entries.

Seems like a couple of folks might appreciate some extra time. Would 2 more days be enough?

Two days would be great - I'd love to playtest my own project and tweak a few things. 

[There's Something in the Pipes]

There's Something in the Pipes - A Very Serious Plumbing Simulator
Downloads: Google Drive | GameJolt



You are the owner of a movie rental store.
You have one hour until your shift.
You need a shower.
The bathtub is full of blood.

Go figure.
----

Whew. Cutting it real close - had to axe a lot of puzzles, sound effects, and animation frames - but I managed to get my entry playable from start to finish!

Mine's coming along! ...Slower than I'd like as things have been busy for me too, so I'm cutting extraneous features out like mad to make the deadline.

We'll see how we go. 

Almost a year later but-- thank you Lorenzo! That means a lot. 

Development for Buy-R-Die got put on hold for a while as I finished up various other projects (research papers, gamejams, expo prep...), but I'm back at it again and making progress. A lot of it's boring technical stuff that doesn't make for good screenshots, but I've also been making headway on the earlier of the game's cutscenes. Most will be the usual static, visual novel fare, but a few sequences lean more towards motion comics.

Not everyone's into the Halloween spirit, it seems.


...Probably nothing to worry about.

Bit of a pain to block in-engine, but useful for those times words don't quite cut it.

...Annnnd then I didn't update this thread for several months. Oops. As it turns out, trying to write a story about a hostile ordinary grocery store at the start of a global pandemic -- where toilet paper kept getting wiped off the shelves and security was routinely called in to protect hand sanitizer -- was a lot harder than it sounds.

In any case, the stores down here have long since calmed down, and I'm finally settling back into things. So here's some updated gifs!

Some light exposition on the, uh, lights.



"Bored" does not mean "inattentive".



...That's not to say there's anything stopping you from stuffing your entire basket.

It's incredible what you can do with a few frames of animation and the tween module.

The first act of the game is shaping up quite nicely, but there's still much to be done on the project as a whole. Ah well. Here's to 2021, hopefully!

(Also-- thanks, Darth!)

If I've got my math right the ceremony will be starting at about four AM my time. Not the easiest, but I can make it work. 

I can try recording the ceremony in a pinch, but I'm not sure how stable my connection will be from this end of the world.

[Latest Screenshots:]

A short visual novel about a completely ordinary shopping trip.


It's eleven o'clock on an October night, and you desperately need groceries.
The good news is that there's a convenience store still open at this hour, and the slightly-grouchy cashier is willing to take your money.
The bad news is that they're having trouble with the lights.

...And there's a weird green glow coming from the freezer...

Latest Screenshots:

(Probable) Features:

• A short (30~60 mins long?) visual novel that's three parts nonsense and one part horror
• Survive one strange night with the help of a person who sells cereal for a living
• Point-and-clicky interludes for all your shopping and escape route-y needs
• Teen rating (Moderate violence, mature themes, mild spookyness, strong language)
• 1280x720 resolution

Latest Update:
2nd November, 2021)
(Delays due to other, more pressing commitments, but I'm back to work.

Previous Notes:
(13th November, 2020)
The first act of the game is coming along quite nicely and has since received a new coat of paint! It took some time to settle on a presentation style I wanted, but I think I've found something that works for me. Most of the game's dialog is going to be standard visual novel fare (i.e., dialog portraits and text boxes), but some scenes are presented in motion comic style instead. This should make the action scenes feel a bit punchier, and be good for a quick gag or two besides.

Wish I could show more of what I've already done off here, buuuuut that's the problem with such short games. Just about everything is spoilers.

(6th March, 2020)
While the skeleton of the game (story beats, mechanics, NPC portraits, some backgrounds, misc. thumbnails) is complete, it's still early days for the project. There's a whole lotta dialog left to be written, not to mention a lot of experimentation left to be done with puzzles.  I'm also not terribly happy with how some of the action scenes are currently being presented. While I'm not much of an animator, I'd like to do something beyond static images and text for this game. (I've got a few ideas in mind, but I'm not gonna get into that until I give it a try & see how do-able it is for a one person team!)

The extreme optimist in me is aiming for an October release, both because it's when the game is set and because it'll encourage me to keep things simple. But I'm also trying to finish up my degree this year, so 2021 seems much more likely.

@Notarobotyet: Thanks a bunch for the feedback! Man, I wish I'd thought to post in the WIP forum back when I first started working on this game. You guys are thorough.

I... have no idea why I didn't think to put a volume slider in. That's embarrassing. I'll add that to my to-do list for the next patch, along with fixing those other audio/visual issues you listed. (I'm still not sure why my font isn't displaying apostrophes, but I'm thinking I might have to bite the bullet and just get a new one. Unless I want to rewrite all the captions to avoid contractions entirely. But that's cheating.)

As for where you get stuck -- I get the feeling I know what happened. A few people have played the game on video since its release, which has made it easier for me to work out which objects & hotspots aren't clearly interactable/blend a little too well into the environment. So, unless you launched a window into space and the game didn't decide to respawn it, it's an art flaw as opposed to a programming one. Accidental pixel hunt segments are also on the chopping block.

Thanks again for your comments, and I'm glad you managed to have some fun with the game!

[AGS Database Page || GameJolt Page]

A Hand-Drawn, Late-Night Puzzler

It's just before midnight, and your clock has stopped moving. You should probably do something about that.



AGS Database Page || GameJolt Page

Features:

• A short (10~20 minutes long) puzzle game
• Explore a world that doesn't care much for the laws of physics
• Hand-drawn graphics, right down to the fonts
• Spy on your neighbors and take their stuff