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Shouldn't this code from PlaceLightSource

Code: ags

while ((countIndex<MaximumLightSources)&&(lightR[countIndex]==-1)) countIndex++;

be

Code: ags

while ((countIndex<MaximumLightSources)&&(lightR[countIndex]!=-1)) countIndex++;

?

As I understand the code, you're searching for the first unused light source, not one that already exists?

First of all - a Colonel's Bequest sequel in current times (judging by the clothes) is a great idea. I'd be very interested to see what undiscovered secrets that old plantation yet holds. Good luck with the game!

As for the poster, I think you've already managed to convey a lot of atmosphere and plot elements. But I would rework the composition a bit (assuming you did it with layers).  You think it's heavy on the left side? I find it quite the opposite - there's way too much going on to the right as the characters on the left are all spectral. I'd move the black lady and the kid over to the left side and increase their size a bit, and move the guy's face to the far right (letting the edge crop off the back of his head so you don't even need to rework that). Let the skull also cast some blue light on the guy's face.
Then I'd move the ghost lady (the cemetary ghost?) to the middle along with the murder victims/ghosts right beneath it. You may also consider making the plantation house itself more prominent, adding some detail and moving it slightly upwards and only display the ghost lady on the sky instead of overlaying the house.

Also, I agree with Snarky that the title font needs some work. I'd suggest finding one similar to that on the original game box and displaying it either with a plain color or a simple gradient - the current silvery texture within red outline just looks messy.

I came across this list quite accidentally and thought of this thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_video_games_by_release

Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster! How can that list be missing The Zoo Race game?

From the website:

After laughing and teasing her friend Rueben about believing in the Noah's Ark story, then Hannah the librarian has a dream about it.  In her dream, her friends are re-shaped into animals and she herself changes into a racehorse and participates in the race "Games of Celebration" after the world flood.  But, unknown to everyone, Noah's sons have created a lot of obstacles on the racetrack for the creatures.  These obstacles on the racetrack slow down the participants and include hurdles, glass mazes, Piranha fish, fire geysers, exploding barrels, rockets, cannons, bomber planes and more!  "Let's give them a real race, ha-ha!" said Japeth.  "Yes and let's have some fun!" said Shem and Ham, so beware, because this race is so very different.

Shareware demo at: http://www.zoorace.com/index.php

Sounds like you haven't set your game to use hi-res coordinates. Before AGS 3.1, all games - even hi-res ones - used a 320x240 coordinate grid for the room/screen coordinates. This meant that in hi-res games you could only place objects and characters on every second pixel which could be quite annoying. Since version 3.1, we do have native hi-res coordinates for pixel-precise placement. However, the old system was retained as an option to ensure backwards compatibility.

In your case, it sounds like the option "Use low-resolution co-ordinates in script" in the General Settings menu has been set to "true". So in your example, the character is actually trying to walk to the (hi-res) coordinate (896, 640) but gets stopped by the screen edge. Either set it to "false" or divide your coordinates by two (224, 160) to make sure the character moves to the right place.

Yeah, I remember there was a lot of bonus stuff on the original Sierra collections (I'm pretty sure the current re-releases only have the bare minimums - not even the AGI versions of games that were remade in VGA). The Space Quest collection video was quite silly but fun, and the King's Quest collection also had a  encyclopedia of Sierra games (made in help file format) and some nice production artwork. My favorite was the GK making-of that Grundislav mentioned, it really boosted my ambition of one day making my own adventure games.

Seeing this again most of all reminded me how horrible video codecs were in the 90's

Well, if you want to distort the full screen as in subspark's example, you need a DynamicSprite copy of the current screen (including objects and characters at their current position, with their current animation frame and current lighting) to then distort. Arguably you only need to grab the screen when something has changed, but since there's no easy way to determine when this has happened, we do it every frame.

Creating a DynamicSprite from a screenshot rather than just creating it from the background is much slower in Direct3D mode as the data must be read back from the video card's memory rather than system RAM. For this reason, instead of grabbing a screenshot to DynamicSprite, my EffectModule replicates the area behind the object in question by grabbing part of the background and then cycling through all the characters and objects in the room, checking if they're overlapping the object and if so, sizing and tinting their graphics to match the actual objects/characters) using DynamicSprite functions and then drawing them in baseline order to the background sprite. This method improves the speed considerably compared to using a screenshot, but I think it could cause quite a slowdown if used full-screen in a room with more than one or two characters and a few objects.

This is also why I suggest pre-distorting the background graphics (storing the frames as DynamicSprites you could have much more than 5 animation frames, though you would probably have to delete and then re-render the frames when saving/restoring to avoid 20+ MB savegame files). Running the realtime distortion only on characters should allow decent framerates.

Dualnames: It's definitely possible to do in-engine (see my previous post), and quite easy scripting wise. Only horribly slow to do full-screen - and even worse when using Direct3D mode. Even grabbing a single screenshot to DynamicSprite causes my framerate to stutter in Direct3D mode, I couldn't imagine at what pace the game would run if doing it every loop.

The most realistic solution would be to use pre-rendered animation frames for the distorted background, either done in an external application such as AfterEffects or dynamically generated upon room entry and only apply real-time distortion to the characters/objects. I should be able to add character support to my effect module if enough people are truly interested.

I can confirm Gius' findings. Clicking (performed by remaining static) does not work inside AGS games, however moving the cursor outside the the game window and not moving you head will trigger a click and change the focus to whatever application you were hovering over. Seeing as HeadMouse is still an experimental Alpha version, it's easy to say that the problem probably lies in that program rather than AGS. But I wonder, has anybody experienced incompatibilities between AGS and other keyboard/mouse remappers? It could be that software-triggered mouseclicks for some reason aren't captured by AGS.

I'm glad you found my module useful. Let me know if you have any problems with it, as I haven't really tested the module with the native hi-res coordinates of AGS 3.1+.

I was quite the vinyl collector a few years back, going to flea markets every weekend, checking record bins outside thrift shops etc. Unfortunately I neither have the time, nor are there any good flea markets nearby after I moved - and way too many professional buyers sniffing around when the stallholders unpack their goods at the break of dawn. A shame really, it was fun while it lasted.

My records (as well as my stereo, a couple of lava lamps and the usual random mess):


And a few of my most prized posessions. They're a pretty good representation of the genres of music in there, though I also collect movie soundtracks and have a strange fondness for bad 80's pop:

If you wish to obtain your software through legal means, even the student version of Toon Boom Studio is quite pricy. Another commercial alternative to look into could be Anime Studio which is more reasonably priced. I've heard quite good things about this one.

I wrote a module (not yet released to the public) that allows you to turn Objects into "EffectObjects" that can work as lenses, mirrors and/or just provide distortion of whatever background/object/character is behind it. For a water distortion effect similar to what you describe it uses simple sine functions performed on columns and/or rows of pixels. Using a graphical displacement map would make it much, much slower as you would need to call GetPixel on every pixel of the displacement map. As is, it's still pretty tough on the CPU, but keeps decent framerates as long as you don't use too many or too large effect objects in the same scene.

For full-screen manipulation a plugin would be preferable, and absolutely necessary if you want to use displacement maps. I don't think it should be too difficult to code, but I don't have any real experience with plugins as I prefer using modules.

Holy crap, you're one fast mofo, CJ! I'm not sure where to start. Ogg Theora support and compiling videos into the .exe? Fantastic! Normal scripts within dialog script? That makes me rethink if I even need my whole custom dialog system. The MovementLinkedToAnimation setting also sounds like a neat improvement. I look forward to trying it all out.

Ah, I didn't realize the player could also leave rooms via the "run script" events. How about adding a custom property (bool) that you set to true for the "player go to a different room" hotspots, and then run your clean-up code in the on_mouse_click for those hotspot before calling RunInteraction?

Looks great, Snake. I'm not sure blurring the mailbox would be a good idea, it might clash with the crispness of the pixel art. It's not very intrusive with the current lighting, so I don't think it's really necessary.

Can't you do the cleaning up in the on_event for eEventLeaveRoom?

If you make the game 32-bit, you could use an alpha channel in the Overlay to make the blue lines semi-transparent. Or if not, use a GUI instead, then you could simply use GUI transparency at, say, 50%. I think it should look OK even over darker lines.

Trent R: Yeah, that's what I meant when I said "you will have to re-initialize it upon entering a new room".

So I was wondering if any of you could help me finding clothes probably suitable for a long haired blonde with a nice figure. Oh, and she also said there's no limit to the shortness of the skirt

Two words: Sailor Moon

I think it has to do with the Overlay being destroyed by the graphic transition to another room rather than the Overlay itself being local to that room. For the experiments I did (where it does disappear on room change), I declared it globally in a module and created it in that module's game_start script.

Yeah, an Overlay does sound like a good solution for your game (though you will need some extra scripting if you want the grid to move along with scrolling rooms). If I recall correctly, speech overlays always have priority, so you shouldn't experience problems with the grid covering in-game text either - as you would if you used a full-screen GUI instead.

And yes, as far as I can tell Overlays are destroyed on room change, so you will have to re-initialize it upon entering a new room.