Messages

If you still have FillSaveGameList it in the SaveList_SelectionChanged, please remove it! That's the cause of the trouble I'm quite sure. Everytime you change your selection, it updates the list, thus bumping the selection to the top.

FillSaveGameList will add the new save to the list, because it updates the ListBox to contain the saves that are in the game directory. So the game you just saved in the line above should be added. AddItem is likely to screw up the savegame indexes, so that should be avoided.
HOWEVER, I fucked up, because SaveGameSlot only saves at the very end of the function where it's called. So running FillSaveGameList wouldn't help unless you run it afterwards. Most people close the save gui the moment that the game is saved, so this usually isn't an issue. AND, that seems to be the case here too (you call gSavegame.Visible = false; right after saving). So don't bother with the AddItem line.

WHERE do you call FillSaveGameList, since I don't see it in the current code? I would suggest doing it just before displaying the Save gui, to make sure that it's up-to-date:

Code: ags

gSavegame.Visible = true;
SaveList.FillSaveGameList();
saves = (SaveList.ItemCount);

And at the point where the game crashes, do you actually have an item selected?

Try setting up a check before getting the Item to see if it still crashes then:

Code: ags

String item = ""; //to avoid errors in later part if the string remains null
if (SaveList.SelectedIndex > -1) item = SaveList.Items[SaveList.SelectedIndex];

edit: In regards to the error, SaveGameSlots should indeed work. You have used SaveList.FillSaveGameList() earlier in the code, right?

edit 2: Wait a minute, what is this code

Code: ags

SaveList.AddItem(input);

meant to do? You shouldn't add anything to the save list manually. Just use SaveList.FillSaveGameList() again if you want to update it.

It would help if you pointed out in which line you get the error message. But I think the problem is that you're mixing up savegameslots and their indexes.

Instead of:

Code: ags

SaveGameSlot(SaveList.SelectedIndex, SaveText.Text);

try:

Code: ags

SaveGameSlot(SaveList.SaveGameSlots[SaveList.SelectedIndex], SaveText.Text);

They're in the drop down menu called "GUI".

Could it be that the window called scan is part of your antivirus or anti-spyware program? If the program doesn't let AGS start until it has scanned the .exe file, and for some reason fails to do so, that would explain the hang. Try turning off whatever anti-virus and -spyware programs you have running (but disconnect your internet connection first!) and see if AGS runs then.

Not anymore

Well, this is from strazer's AGS tidbits & snippets page:

CJ: "Yes, the script engine has a limit of 9 parameters in a function call."

AGS only supports up to 9 parameters for function calls, sorry. I hope you can find a workaround.

You can try setting (System.VSync = true), in theory that should reduce the tearing (which happens because the screen is not redrawn all at one time). Alternately, if you're using an CRT monitor, you can check "Use 85Hz display" in the demo's winsetup.exe, I think that could help a bit as well.

That's a lovely art style you've got going there, I'd love to see a game with that look.

The main thing here isn't in my opinion the legal issue - David Gray isn't a big corporation, and I'm quite sure he wouldn't go through the hassle of suing you. Rather, it's a matter of respect for a person whose work you obviously admire. If the guy has specificly asked someone else to remove their remake of his game, why even consider making another?
If you are really dedicated to finishing this project, and have done quite a bit of work already, how about asking David Gray if you can do it - on the condition that you, rather than distribute it yourself, allow him to sell it packaged along with his original games? There are reasons why he'd say no - he'd have to offer support on a game which he didn't make himself, and may dislike a remake with better graphics overshadowing his own work. But if he agrees, you'll get your game out there and at the same time be repaying the guy who made games that you enjoyed.

[some]

Why not take some of the ideas you like about Dune and incorporate them into a NEW product, where no one can say yeah or nay about copyrights and legality? 

You mean like George Lucas did?

Yes, there is a lag between the loops - and for some reason it's not always exactly one frame, which would have made it easy to compensate for. My solution is to hide the player character and then have a dummy character which animates the same way as the follow sprite - i.e.:

Code: ags

player.Transparency = 100; //not in every loop of course, just for the example
cPlayerdummy.View = player.View;
cPlayerdummy.Loop = player.Loop;
cPlayerdummy.Frame = player.Frame;
cFollowsprite.Loop = player.Loop;
cFollowsprite.Frame = player.Frame;

It sounds like "Little Shop of Horrors" ("Feed me, Seymour!") with an M. Night Shyamalan plot mixed in. I certainly wouldn't mind playing a game like this. In fact, one of my favorite adventures is Dreamweb, where you never know whether the hero is actually killing in the name of good or is just insane.

I assume you're familiar with the three Yahtzee games since you mention Trilby. Prodigal is another nice AGS horror game. And if you don't mind a text parser, a favorite of mine is the AGI game Enclosure.

I print it using RawDraw. To be honest, I don't really give a shit about it myself - I just deactivated the functionality for Shift+5 so the player can't enter it. But I figured it was an error in the way GetTextWidth worked. I wasn't aware about the Display("%s", x)/Display(x) difference, so possibly this is "as designed".

Rincewind:

Spoiler

Perhaps Mr. G is a partner in the accounting firm? What was their name again?

[close]

I'm aware that the symbol "%" is used to mask itself for use in Strings, so that "%%" displays as "%". However, when using GetTextWidth on a string containing "%%" the function calculates the width of both symbols even though only one is displayed. This is rather inconvenient when parsing user-input and having to limit to a certain (displayed) length.

But monkey, you also made the vector module, right? So can't you just copy the code from that into the dialogue module and add a note in the readme to make sure that people don't use both?

I think the 3D backgrounds does help to make conversations more cinematic (and I have a feeling there will be lots of talking in this game - TLJ amounts). But I do agree, it seems a bit wasted, especially since the characters look rather dated up close. But just because these scenes aren't set up for camera movement, it doesn't mean that it won't be used further into the game - I could imagine a nice chase scene with the camera tracking through the environment.