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Check my edit that I wrote while you posted.

You could make a custom "type" property for the inventory item and then filter items with the appropriate value when filling up your inventory window.

Edit: A long time ago I wrote some code for sorting the inventory here. The only difference you want to make is to avoid  the bubble sort part (assuming you want to keep them in the order they were picked up). And then add a conditional check that only writes them back to the inventory window if the type property is the right value.
You'll want to keep the contents of the array so that you can restore the full inventory when the user closes the window or changes the filter mode. Also be aware that you will have to add your own function for new inventory items being added/removed (for instance during inventory combination puzzles) while the filtered inventory is being displayed, as the new items are not part of your stored list. If you read the full inventory back to the inventory window last-to-first, you could just let your own AddItem function add the new items at the end of the array, and your RemoveItem set those items that were removed to an invalid value (e.g. -1)  and don't add those back.

I think he looks great, in fact I prefer him to the FoA sprite. The simplicity is just brilliant. But no, he doesn't look very sarcastic - more like a just-the-facts-ma'am Jack Webb-style detective. My only criticism would be that the left side of the coat is too straight.

Edit: And maybe you could work with the colors to make him look less like Inspector Gadget?

Use:

Code: ags

if (player.ActiveInventory == iKey) Display("I used the key on another item");

And so on. The ActiveInventory property stores whichever item is chosen as the current inventory cursor.

It's really a very minor change. If you revert to doing IsColliding checks for testing anyway, just put this around it:

Code: ags

//Replace "treasureobject" with the proper object pointer.
treasureobject.Baseline = (player.y - treasureobject.Y)/2;
if player.IsCollidingWithObject(treasureobject) {
   //Do your stuff, remove the object, add score etc.
   }
treasureobject.Baseline = 0; //only relevant if it will eventually be turned on again

Edit: Hmm, not too sure about the correct calculation of the baseline, it could have weird effects. Perhaps it would be better to:

Code: ags

//Add or subtract a percentage of the object's height. The number "20" I just picked at random. You can always experiment.
int percentageheight = Game.SpriteHeight[treasureobject.Graphic]*20/100;
if (player.y < treasureobject.Y-percentageheight) treasureobject.Baseline = treasureobject.Y-percentageheight; 
else if (player.y > treasureobject.Y+percentageheight) treasureobject.Baseline = treasureobject.Y+percentageheight;
else { //within these coordinates the player is bound to collide with the object. If not for drawing order, we could just set baseline=player.y
   if (player.y>treasureobject.Y) treasureobject.Baseline = player.y-1;
   else treasureobject.Baseline = player.y+1;
   }

Then do IsColliding.

I never was very fond of IsColliding for generic collision detection due to it's dependency on baselines. What you could do for making the treasures easier to pick up using IsColliding would be to temporarily change their baselines while doing the check to (character.y-treasureobject.Y)/2 and then reset it after the check. This would make the vertical distance at which you can pick up the item twice as big. This assumes that both character and object baselines are 0 by default.

I would like to see your game in action, to see if I could find any pattern in the slowdowns. But I'll wait to ask until CJ has determined if it's an engine issue.

It's the resolution settings of your monitor. When you're watching the screenshot of the game, you presumably do so in Windows' natural resolution. When you run the game (in full-screen), it's in 800x600. You probably have adjusted your display manually using the buttons on the monitor, so it's set up properly only for your standard Windows resolution. Most monitors have calibration software that allows you to run through all possible display settings and adjust how they show up on-screen and store these values.

Try running the game windowed, my guess would be that it looks perfect there. If so, have fun calibrating your screen

Are you telling me that your module can show 30.000 characters on-screen at once? That's pretty darn impressive. I though it could only show one character per button, but now that I checked the module itself you can use unlimited GUIs. However, as you'll still be adding GUIs (and adding 30 buttons to each one) instead of creating dummy characters and initilizing them into the array (which could even be avoided if they are all numbered in sequence) (Edit: I didn't realize you just keep importing the same GUI, that does make things a bit easier). And as for 30.000, I'm pretty sure that AGS will struggle quite a bit with 1000 GUIs on-screen at the same time. Not sure about characters, but I've definitely seen a hundred characters walking around on-screen without any slowdown.

Listen, I'm not bashing your module, nor am I begging you to rewrite it in any way, because personally I don't have any uses for it. If it works for your game, that's awesome and you shouldn't change anything. I was just making some suggestions as to how to get around some of the limitations (walkbehinds, baselines, lighting and tint) and make it more useful for other developers. I totally accept that you're not using my suggestions. But you could at least consider implementing something as simple as sorting the ZOrding of the buttons by their respective y coordinates. It's obvious from your demo that there are baseline issues in the module, and it would be as easy as a setting (button.ZOrder = button.Y+320 //adding a screenheight to cover cases where button.Y<0) whenever the y coordinate changes, with exceptions that (if > 1000 then = 1000) and (if < 0 then = 0).

Just wrote my post no. 2008. Unless I only post once a year from now on, my number of posts will never be the same as the current year again.
...Oops, too late, this is no. 2009. Well, I guess I can continue at my regular pace then.

The PS2 game killer7 kind of did this, though you actually manifest the different personalites as individual characters in the game world. It would be interesting if all that changed was the abilities available and the character's perspective on the game world. I see a lot of puzzle potential just in triggering the different personalities, like when you take sedatives or drink coke to switch between the dreamworld and the real world in Trilby's Notes. Makes me think of Scott Adams' old The Hulk, where Bruce Banner could "bite lip" to provoke himself into becoming The Hulk.

Edit: It could make things quite complicated, yet very interesting, if each of the personalities would operate in their own fugue state, not recognizing characters that the other personalities had met nor remembering tasks set to other personalities. But I don't see any reasonable way of implementing this in gameplay, unless you pull some Memento shit on the player. One way could be to start off with blackouts. You would lose consciousness for a second, then wake up in a totally different place and with new inventory items on you. All of a sudden, you would be dealing with NPCs who look at you strangely, though you have no idea why or if you met them before. You would find your room listed in the motel registry under a different name and with a stranger's signature. Eventually you would also get to play as this second personality, perhaps after discovering the way to trigger the change.

I must agree with Vince:

Spoiler

The paranormal element feels quite natural in the world of the game, and you quickly learn to accept that all these people have psychic abilities. The only really silly part, as I see it, is the big evil plan of abusing these talents. Most of game is a solid investigation of the conspiracy, which is pretty familiar territory for the adventure genre. You don't learn anything truly mindboggling until the final act - there are twists and turns, but most of those surprises are somewhat predictable. But the ending... I definitely didn't see that coming. It's quite memorable, but for all the wrong reasons.

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Spoiler

Al:The "apparitions" would convince anyone that the DITR people are capable of producing a paranormal weapon.

GG: I don't follow the logic. If anything the apparitions just prove that they are able to somehow do astral projections. If I proved to you that I could bend spoons it wouldn't naturally follow that I could destroy the Golden Gate bridge with my powers.

Al: Brown clearly said that any physician would be able to confirm their claims as the list of the women would be made public.

GG: Yes, but after the fact. While it may be a big deal to the women, it doesn't prove anything than that you somehow managed to compile a list of infertile women without their awareness. Anybody who bribed gynecologists to report infertile women without telling them the diagnosis could compile such a list. If, on the other hand, you said you would make every wife of a congressman infertile over the next year, and then did it, THAT would be impressive.

Al: Not true. Quite the opposite really, it is clearly stated that "all Sydelle has to do is dream" and the game never suggests that it's draining in any way.

GG: Ok, maybe not. It's been a while since I played it, but I thought the dude who helps you enter Sydelle's dream said something about it being difficult, and the guy in the basement needs to gather strength before performing his apparitions. Perhaps nothing is mentioned about Sydelle, though, my bad.

Al: Nope... It wasn't black humor. [...] In Dr. Brown's paper, it is written that thirst is one of the first symptoms. The phrase was added to point out that Sydelle was going to die.

GG: Well, that's what I thought was funny about it. I guess I just have a dark sense of humor then.

Al: Big organizations don't always come up with great plans. Think about it: Microsoft's great idea of making billions of computers more secure was to add an "Are you sure you want to run this program?" dialog line in Vista. And that took them years to come up with. 

GG: That's really an end-all argument . Ok, you've convinced me, it all makes so much sense now.

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Congrats, Dave!!! What a sweet story. I'd seen Janet in pictures you posted from the GDC and wondered who she was. I can somehow relate to the long-distance-relationship thing since my girlfriend comes from Italy and moved here to Denmark after a year of us travelling back and forth (though not cross-Atlantic). We met in equally geeky surroundings, working as game testers in Vancouver.

The best of luck to the both of you!

Would it be possible to modify or at least add another type to guis to freeze EVERYTHING except themselves and mouse control (like an EXCLUSIVE tag)?  Everything would include processing Waits,changerooms,animations, anything except gui scripts, mouse movement and control and keypresses.

Not repeatedly_execute_always() either, please. It's necessary if you want to do custom animations of the GUI or cursor mouseover text.

Thanks for the explanations, Alkis. I still disagree with several of your story choices, but I can see that you thought carefully about things and didn't just make it up as you went along.

Spoiler

Alkis: I think this is the part you did not understand, and that's what probably ruined the plot for you. [...] First of all, his talent is not telling black and white women apart, it's "always making the right choice", at least that is how they see it.

GG: Well, I actually did "get it". This is explained in the first five minutes of the game (don't remember when the part about him choosing what others want him to choose comes up, but it's definitely stated clearly during the end cutscene). However, what they USE his talent for, is essentially telling black and white women apart - and I emphasized that for the sake of, perhaps ill-placed, comedy, since my immediate reaction was to find it quite silly. I just don't buy the explanation that they'd tell the sponsors "Oh, so you aren't convinced by our finely crafted propaganda about racial degeneration? Well, we also have this guy who pulls numbers out of his ass. Satisfied? Great, let's get on with the ethnic cleansing then." I get the fact that they're a bunch of racist nutjobs who just want an excuse to go ahead with their master plan, but I don't find it credibly that people who put this much money and effort into scientific research would settle for such scant evidence. They don't even seem to be religious.  The only reasonable explanations would be, as you told Vince, that Hungerton knows the truth about Jason's talent but uses it to manipulate the people around him. If so, fair enough, but I still think that fanatics who are so willing to believe anything that supports their cause could come up with more solid arguments than paranormal phenomena.

Alkis: First of all, I'm surprised you think 100 is a small number to start with. For me, even ONE would be too many. Imagine having a sister and a wife of the right age. Would you risk it?

GG: Short answer, yes. Would you seriously leave the country that you were born and raised in just because some whackos threaten to make you sterile through paranormal means if you don't (with evidence to their claim so poor that James Randi wouldn't lift an eyebrow)? I think the Beltway sniper attacks caused more of a panic than this would. And again, would Sydelle even be able to do enough damage to cause more than a minor fluctuation in the fertility statistics? Without knowing the scope of her powers, I still think thousands a day sounds like a lot - the game seemed to suggest that psychic efforts take a lot of energy out of people. [edit: made a quick overhead calculation - she would have to sterilize 120 women a day to match the effect of chlamydia on black women's fertility!] What about the African-American men remaining in the country because you're only threatening women, by the way? Wouldn't this whole plan just lead to even more interracial breeding? And each and every one of them would be out there trying to track down your racist white ass.

Alkis: I'm sorry it made you laugh, it is obvious that in your opinion the concept of the story is ridiculous.

GG: But surely the final line about her "needing a glass of water" has an element of black humour in it? At least I thought it was a great punchline.

Alkis: How would they locate them? They obviously had the financial means to make it look like a legitimate organization. How exactly would a girl "sitting around performing paranormal uterectomies" be easily traced?

GG: As soon as a terrorist group - which is what they'd be considered after making their demands - becomes a threat, any means will be used to find it. In this case the FBI would start looking into white supremacy networks, they'll be searching for groups with funding, and unless the organisation has killed everyone they ever came into contact with, names will start to come up. Next thing, assuming they buy into the paranormal stuff, they'll make cross reference between those people and organisations researching psychic phenomena. There MUST be a few talented people that Hungerton has approached which turned down his proposal of being isolated in the middle of nowhere. Even with heavy money laundering and dummy corporations it just doesn't seem possible to build and run a privately owned town without leaving a trace.

Alkis: I never said anything about the beta testers. I was simply addressing everyone who would buy the game, knowing that some people would want Jason to survive.

GG: Ah, ok. I assumed you meant people who had already played the game. Still referring to the death of the player character rather than the plot revelation though.

Alkis: But honestly, the story is about a man who killed himself because he realized he was helping a neo-nazi organization sterilize women, surely the dramatic dialogs in the end are expected?

GG: Expected, yes. But in my mind, perhaps less melodramatic dialogue would have made the whole concept seem more credible?

Alkis: I believe it was obvious that Jason needed proper training and stimulation to use his special ability. Otherwise, he would have never joined DITR in the first place.

True. And I think the schizm between what Jason's "special abilities" makes him choose and what is actually the right thing to do is quite interesting. It's not much use theorizing what the game could have been, but playing around with this element could have made for some interesting gameplay as well as story control. What if, for instance, Jason could periodically watch the hypnotic animation that he recorded on his cellphone and would then know exactly what to do (such as picking up the poison). Except, as it turns out, it would actually have been what others wanted him to chose. It could be a nice mix of a built-in hint function and a story element, sort of like the stone in Wishbringer. In the end I just would have liked more choice in the hands of the player (not necessarily multiple choice, just choice) to reflect the theme of the game.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to thoroughly comment my impressions of the ending. Especially your thoughts around Hungerton's motives/knowledge made me feel a little less antagonistic towards the plot.

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I remember you posted about this problem earlier, and it's annoying that we still haven't found a solution. Do the dungeons come after the minigame? If so, could the repeatedly_execute script from that still be running in the background?

Do you have ANYTHING at all that may accumulate throughout gameplay such as a struct or array filling up?

I appreciate your comments, Nikolas. It's great to hear the thoughts of the people involved in the project, and I look forward to Alkis elaborating.

Spoiler

BTW, Garagegothic, Jason is able to pick the 'right' answer in everything not just pick black and whites. Small micalculation there from you! Wink

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Spoiler

Oh, of course, but we know that from the very start of the game. It's what the organisation uses his talent for that is the big twist, so that's why I name that as his revealed skill. But I apologize if you think I made it sound sillier than it is.

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Obviously there's a whole game leading up to the ending, most of which is fun and exciting (once you figure out how to change that damn lightbulb). Nevertheless, the ending IS more or less self contained. Up until that point the story could have gone in all kinds of directions, but the end cutscene really defines the overarcing plot of the game. It might as well have revealed that the organisation were a group of aliens using Jason's skills to win the lottery, and the rest of the game would remain pretty much the same, except maybe for a few cutscenes and some subtle hints on the nature of the beast here and there.

Garagegothic: You can click through the dialogue in DITR... Huh

I was using The Lost Crown as an example of the problem, not DITR. But maybe I wrote it in a confusing way.

Could you please try turning off the pixel perfect detection and use AreThingsOverlapping instead and see if that speeds things up. If you're using the collides-with-anything setting for the collision detection module it could slow things down with that many objects on-screen. If that's the case, it may be possible to do some kind of optimizing, for instance not checking pixel perfect for the treasures. Or sorting the items into an array by y-coordinate so that only those in the player's vicinity will be checked for overlapping (as the treasures aren't moving it shouldn't be necessary to update the array every loop, so you could store characters in a separate array).

Edit: Forgot to ask. Does the game also slow down at the dungeons if you skip directly to the room in question, or does the problem only appear during a playthrough?

Are you using any DrawingSurface/RawDraw routines? Do you use DynamicSprites? Are you using any kind of custom made collision detection code? Any 'while' loops in the repeatedly_execute, anything else going on there? Also, what's the color depth of the game?

Hmm, I wonder if there really are so few AGS games that exhibit excellence in writing. I seem to remember a number of titles with snappy dialog. Comedy titles more than serious games, probably, but still...

Yes, I spoke too quickly there. There are indeed many superbly written AGS games - the latest I played being RON: Au Naturel. I should have specified (but didn't realize myself at the time of writing) that my comment mainly referred to games with voice acting. Even well-written dialogue tends to feel very longwinded when you're waiting for it to be spoken out loud rather than clicking through at your own pace. Especially if the game doesn't let you skip dialogue lines by clicking, such as in The Lost Crown.
One reason for the overall poor writing is games is probably that most adventure games these days are developed in Europe (France, Germany, Russia, Czec Republic) in the local language and then translated to English. I've worked several years in games localization and know exactly how awkward otherwise well written original dialogue can become if translated verbatim. I am NOT saying this is the case for Diamonds in the Rough - according to Len Green (Snarky: can't blame the guy that the game is dedicated to for being defensive about it, btw) the English of the original text was near perfect, and overall the dialogue and narration does flow pretty well. I'm talking about games like Black Mirror (the horror...) or Legacy: Dark Shadows.

I have to go in a few minutes but I will be happy to answer your points/questions later tonight. While I do not disagree with some of the things you said, it seems to me that there are a number of things you missed or misunderstood.

Thanks, Alkis. I really look forward to that. I was sure there was something I'd missed or just didn't get, and that's part of the reason why I posted in the first place. So that people could set me straight. I actually considered PM'ing you instead of posting on the forum, to get the details clarified, but in the end I was also curious to hear the opinion of other players. I hope you realize that my criticism of this small part of your game doesn't reflect any personal grudge against you. I greatly respect your work, as I've mentioned countless times before I'm a huge fan of Other Worlds, and I'm very grateful for the review copy of Diamonds in the Rough that you sent me. I'm glad to hear that you're not offended by me posting ending spoilers on the forum - I would have removed them immediately had you asked me to. I'll look very much forward to read your comments on the matter.

Vince:

Spoiler

Yeah, that was a nice reveal, and one of the melodramatic moments in the game that actually touched me - but as you say, it does let some steam out of the final revelations. As for him kissing Sydelle because it's the choice she wanted - I didn't think of that, but it's a very good explanation and makes a lot of sense. It adds quite a bit to the scene and to her character, I think. I also agree that the main problem with the ending wasn't so much its content but rather the hype around it. As with any Shyamalan movie, an ending that everybody tells you not to reveal is bound to disappoint.

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