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SSH, you do realize this means war? Nah, I'm glad to see that other people get at least the basic functionality of what I intended with my module. But if you should dare developing this any further towards dynamic shadows...

Using objects isn't really the best solution, but that said, it's probably the simplest method, and since you're posting in the beginner's forum I won't start giving other suggestions. However, there's no need to use multiple objects. When you run out of Loops in a View, you can use SetView


Could you please post the code you currently have? I think something like this would work fine:

Code: ags

object[0].SetView(1, 1, 1);
object[0].Animate(1, 1, eOnce, eBlock);
object[0].SetView(2, 1, 1);
object[0].Animate(1, 1, eOnce, eBlock);

(of course the object, view, loop and delay numbers should be changed according to the actual objects and animations used)

There's no way to fill a DynamicSprite's non-transparent areas with a specific color is there?

No, but if you just want it to be black, you can assign the sprite to a character and use Character.Tint on that character - that's what I'm doing for my module.

hmmm, you could make a module that RawDraws a black shadow the same width as a character's sprite and, say, 10% of a character's height and then sets it up automatically....

Yeah, this is the easiest way to do good top-down shadows. I don't really see why the height should be related to the character height though (but of course it should adjust to the character scale). In fact, the width should rather be calculated from the width of the character frame 90 degrees from the current (not sure this makes sense), multiplied by a perspective modifier.

Beyond that ... I think GarageGothic was working on a fancy, dynamic shadow system a while back (for the aptly-titled Shadowplay). Not sure what became of it, though, or even if it was ever offically released. No update in a little over a year isn't encouraging - but it does mean it CAN be done somehow.

No, the ShadowBox module hasn't been released, and to be honest it needs quite an overhaul before a public release. For my own purposes it's still glitchy, but right now I'm just fixing bugs on a case-by-case basis whenever it's necessary for my game. A tech demo is coming, but I've been saying that forever now.

I'm not sure exactly what you need in the manner of tinting. But you do realize that you can also FadeOut to white by using SetFadeColor(255, 255, 255? An alternative is to make a full-screen GUI with a white background color. Then gradually change its transparency from 100 to 0 using a while loop similar to the one used above.

This shouldn't be too hard to script by using an invisible character, assigning the graphic of the GUI button to him and then using pixel perfect detection to see whether the mouse is over him or not. Something like:

Code: ags

function IsMouseOverButton(Button *mybutton) {
   ViewFrame *tempframe = Game.GetViewFrame(cTemp.View, cTemp.Loop, cTemp.Frame);
   tempframe.Graphic = mybutton.Graphic;
   cTemp.Transparency = 100;
   cTemp.ChangeRoom(player.Room, mybutton.OwningGUI.X + mybutton.X + Game.SpriteWidth[mybutton.Graphic]/2,  mybutton.OwningGUI.Y + mybutton.Y + Game.SpriteHeight[mybutton.Graphic]);
   cTemp.Baseline = 200; //set the baseline of character to front, to avoid other stuff getting in-between
   mybutton.OwningGUI.Clickable = false;
   bool mouseisoverbutton;
   if (Character.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y) == cTemp) mouseisoverbutton = true;
   mybutton.OwningGUI.Clickable = true;
   cTemp.ChangeRoom(-1);
   return mouseisoverbutton; //returns true if mouse is over non-transparent area, otherwise false
   }

This requires that you add a character with the script-o-name TEMP, and make sure that its frame isn't used by any other character (easiest to do by creating a unique View for the character). That character should be "Clickable" and have "Ignore room area scaling" checked. Of course the game must also have "Pixel perfect click detection" turned on.

When the player clicks on a button, you run IsMouseOverButton(button) in the beginning of the button interaction, and if it returns true, you let the button script do whatever it's supposed to.

EDIT: I've tested the code and it seems to work. I don't guarantee that it's bug free though. If you need to check several non-rectangular buttons that overlap (as the shapes in a yin-yang symbol for example), you should run the check for the other button, when the topmost one is clicked and IsMouseOverButton(button) returns false.

Damn, that made for interesting and very nostalgic reading. And it's scary how little adventure games have developed since - I especially appreciated this quote from the Zak McKracken review:

After setting up a perfectly good premise, the game drops all pretense to plot and becomes yet another "find-the-pieces-scattered-around-the-world-to-build-a-magic-machine" game.

That was 18 years ago, and still this is one of the most common plot devices in adventure games! Apparently Charles Cecil & Co. didn't read CGW in the late eighties.

I use the Sony DSC-P200 which I totally love (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/P200/P200A.HTM except mine is black). I wish there was a better manual focus for blurring out backgrounds and other effects, but it's easy to use and the image quality is great (and I haven't even shot at full resolution yet). It's also a nice compromise between size and optical quality - as long as I can carry it in my pocket, I don't mind that it's not super-slim.

It's only out on GameTap so far (i.e. Americans only). For the rest of us, 1st of November is the magic date.

Heh, I suppose I can say a few words about my impression of the game now - I've written two reviews of it already for different magazines and am supposed to turn in a third version tomorrow morning .

First of all, the graphics are lovely. Sure, it's nothing compared to recent graphics engines, but I think it's a major accomplishment just to expand 2D comic book characters to three dimensions, and I think they've succeeded in that. Like in Bone, the faces don't show much emotion in the talking animations, and some of the supporting characters aren't that well modelled (shopkeeper in particular). But overall I think they captured the style of the comic book very well, and I totally love Max' idle animations.
The voices I really liked. I played the original Sam & Max in floppy version, so I have no idea if the new voices are similar, but they sound more or less like I imagined they would. Also, the dialog flows very naturally, which is rare in adventure games. Personally I think the writing is great, but LimpingFish may have issues with that since I also liked the dialog in Bone.

The majority of the puzzles (or so it feels) are dialog based. I find this to be a wise decision and fit very well with the comic book's sense of humor. I especially loved the puzzle where you have to (minor spoiler):

Spoiler

Convince the psychiatrist to give you the "right" diagnosis.

[close]

There's hardly any of the absurd inventory puzzles from Sam & Max: Hit the Road, which destroyed the pacing of that game for me. The few item based puzzles here are extremely straightforward. The only ones that require some kind of lateral thinking are to be found

Spoiler

in the very surreal dream sequence(s).

[close]

The driving game doesn't add much to the gameplay (in fact they're almost puzzles rather  than arcade sequences), but adds some variety. And although you can switch to Max during a few dialog scenes, I hope they'll make him a playable character in later episodes. I should add, by the way, that the episodes are self contained, just like the comic book stories, so you don't have to buy the rest of the series to follow the plot development.

Sam & Max is, along with the Bone games, one of the few comedy games that has actually managed to make me laugh in recent years (something neither Al Emmo or The Exchange Student did). If you're a fan of Steve Purcell's trademark nonsensical plots and absurd dialog, you're in for a real treat. I've given the game 8,5/10 in my reviews, and I think this could really be the title to kick off episodic game distribution.

The repeatedly_execute_always runs also during blocking functions (characters talking, some walk modes) while the normal repeatedly_execute doesn't. I assume the player can't use the interface during such scenes, so I would assume the normal repeatedly_execute should be enough in your case.

I just noticed that Rosangela is wearing different clothing in the screenshots. Neat, I've loved games where characters change clothes since the multiple costume changes in Codename: Iceman. But why is she wearing a jacket inside the apartment, but not in a park at night?

This looks absolutely amazing, I've been looking forward to this announcement ever since I heard a remake was in the works.  I love the cover artwork (despite Rosangela's 5 o'clock shadow ), the style seem similar to the painting someone drew for BJ1. The characters in the screenshots are also awesome, but am I right in assuming that a different person drew the dialog portrait? It doesn't really match the style of the face on the photo - but it's beautiful, it reminds me of the later Sierra games such as Dagger of Amon Ra.

One question, will the unifinished story arc from BoE of Rosangelas family be finished in the first case, or will it span the entire series? This looks so good, but I don't know if I can bear another cliffhanger ending (and another, and yet another).

Good luck with the project! I'm looking forward to it. Edit: And I'm damn impressed that you have the balls to set such a precise release date.

Please understand that I'm not criticizing FoY - I'm looking forward to the game and congratulate you on your nominations. I'm merely questioning the focus of these awards, which seem to be all over the place - and that's too bad since it's a great initiative. Not a single bad word about FoY, but from what I've seen so far it's not exactly pushing any boundaries. Though I'm not sure what Prey is doing in those lists either.

It's nominated for "Jaw-dropping demo" and "Best narrative" not for innovation, iirc.

Well, the overall statement is that "These awards highlight and reward titles that push the boundaries to deliver fun innovative gameplay".
And as for the narrative award specificly: "The aim of this category is to find the most innovative and impressive script, overall storyline, in-game dialogue or script-creation system". Seeing as Killer 7, Psychonauts, Whom The Telling Changed and Facade are among the other nominees, FoY is a rather odd choice. Especially if the nomination is based on the demo, which could hardly be any more traditional.

The vast majority of prophecy found in the Hebrew scriptures (commonly called the Old Testament) was concerning the life of Jesus and therefore reveals that the Bible supports Christianity.

The Messianic prophecies are about The Messiah, whom the Christians acknowledge to be Jesus whereas the Jews believe he hasn't come yet. There were loads of people around that time claiming/claimed to be the Messiah and Jesus was just the most succesful. If any of the prophecies happen to match part of Jesus' life, keep in mind that he himself had studied the Messianic prophecies.

Maybe this can be written in a neater way,  but this is more or less the concept:

Code: ags

int myobjectnum;
Object *myobject = Object.GetAtScreenXY(x, y);
if (myobject != null) myobjectnum = myobject.ID;

And then do whatever you need with myobjectnum. (of course you don't need the int at all, you can put myobject.ID directly into whatever function you're using the number in, but you need to check that the object isn't null first.)

I don't know the name of your Inventory GUI (I didn't even know there was one in the default template). But if the GUI is called inventory, the code to close it would be:

Code: ags

gInventory.Visible = false;

Oh, I thought you were using the Overlay* Character.SayBackground(string message) function for background speech. You're probably better off asking in the thread for that module (http://americangirlscouts.org/bbc.com/yabb/index.php?topic=25344.0) or even to pm SSH about it.

As for the music, I don't see any logical reason for why it shouldn't play. Perhaps the fact that you run a blocking function right afterwards messes it up. Try putting a Wait(1); before running the animation and see if that helps. As an alternative, if the sound should only loop during the animation, you could assign the sound to some of the animation frames. Timing could be tricky though.

Bone and look how that turned out.

Did you play both Bone games or only the first? Personally I consider The Great Cow Race one of the best comedy adventure games in recent years (well, THE best maybe since I can't come up with a single other game that has made me laugh, until Sam & Max that is). The only real difference between Bone and Sam & Max is an even bigger emphasis on dialog and a more surreal kind of humor - the interface, gameplay style and game engine are identical, so if you disliked those immensely, yes, you may be disappointed.