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Ah, I see. This is getting complicated . Any chance you could show a screenshot or just a schematic of how you want it to look. I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around it. There's always the DynamicSprite option if simpler solutions fail. (And that's mainly of interest if you're using the effect in multiple rooms - if it's a single one it'll be easier to simply have two backgrounds and two sets of sprites for the objects).

That's odd. Are you moving the darkness object in any way? I believe that resets the baseline (at least it does for characters).

Just use a Character or Object for the layer itself with a Baseline value of 1 to appear behind everything else, and if needed IgnoreWalkbehinds set to true.

Edit: Just noticed the bit about it being in front of Objects but behind Characters. Are the Characters able to walk behind the Objects? If not, you can just set the Object.Baselines to 1 and the dark layer baseline to 2. If characters can walk behind objects, you'd probably be better off using DynamicSprites overlaid with the dark layer for all Objects (copy the original alpha channel from the Object back to the DynamicSprite after drawing the dark layer on top of it) and draw the dark layer on top of the background (initialize all this on room entry).

Sure thing, uploaded them here.

'The Night Before - Act 3' and 'The Sorcerer's Appraisal (AGI)' turned out not to be AGS games so I left those out, but the rest should be valid - though Hero 6 used a couple of different engines throughout development, this one is definitely an AGS .exe.

I totally forgot about Byzantine until now, btw - whatever happened to that project? The demo was awesome. And the lovely Revenants too - I keep trying to convince Chrille to return to that one.

[Customizable Idle Animation Speed]

Customizable Idle Animation Speed

At the moment, there seems to be no option apart from going through every frame and adding a -5 delay or something. I have 8 directions with 32 frames of idle animation each. NO WAY!

Not to suggest that your request isn't reasonable, but as a workaround you could just set up a timer to run the animation instead of using the built-in idle mode. There's even a module for it, but I have no idea if it's 3.2 compatible.

Can't download the Eyes of the Jade Sphinx demo page though, page not available...

Sorry 'bout that, I didn't realize that "anyone who has the link can view" meant "anyone WHO YOU SENT THE LINK TO THROUGH GOOGLE". Now it should work:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1Lx8Sm5-DK6NjJlNjE2YmQtOGU1My00YTIzLWJlYzYtZTkyMDVlNjFmNDM1&hl=en

Here's the Eyes of the Jade Sphinx demo.

Also uploaded a list of AGS games on my old HD (well, the ones I've made the effort to rename and sort in a specific folder at least). Just ask in case you need me to upload any of them.

Use an invisible font for speech text (possibly you can also set the font to transparent color, I seem to remember that it didn't work for me, but that was years ago). There's one here.

You solved it while I was writing, but I might as well post this. You  could also have used String.Truncate, like so:

Code: ags

String text = "Hello!";
Overlay *textOverlay;
int i = 1;
while (i < text.Length) { 
  String text_trunc = text.Truncate(i);
  textOverlay = Overlay.CreateTextual(x, y, textWidth, Game.NormalFont, 20, text_trunc);
  Wait(20);
  i++;
  }
textOverlay = Overlay.CreateTextual(x, y, textWidth, Game.NormalFont, 20, text);

Do you by change have copy for me?

Yeah, I have it somewhere. I'll upload it tomorrow.

Edit: BTW, I'm impressed that the original website from 9 years ago is still online! Same dead download links as on Dave's old blog though.

Couldn't find Dave's "Eye of the Jade Sphinx" in the db either.

special care has been given to make sure the adventure has a realistic feel about it

Cue screenshot of laser grid in ventilation shaft  

Just kidding. Sounds really cool, and looks good too (though I'm eerily reminded of the Simpsons episode where groundskeeper Willie greases up to crawl through the air duct). There's much too few espionage games out there that aren't exclusively about stealth/shooting - I'm working on correcting that myself too - with my luck probably just in time for Rockstar Games' "Agent" to have been released months beforehand with the same setting and plot elements, I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be more Bond than Le Carre, but we'll have to wait and see.

Odd coincidence - the game I've been planning at one point had the working title "Requiem for a Spook"! Can you reveal if music is in any way part of your plot, or it's just a cool title?

(Edit: Just checked my design doc, another title I considered was "Symphony of Deception", don't know what it is with spies and musical terms, but they seem to go well together )

You should be able to do a "while (cNpcName.Frame != X) Wait(1);" where X is the transition frame you want, then start the dialog in the next line. Can't see why it wouldn't work.

You could avoid the plothole by having the character refuse to go anywhere near the receptionist without a disguise.

And then, when you finally get to her, discover that she's blind 

No direct way of doing it, no. You could either simulate the built-in text display by using a GUI or Overlay (e.g. use the background speech module, and add a width paramater to use instead of the module's default_text_width value) or - in case you just want the width to be less than the default, you could insert your own forced linebreaks into the String. That could either be done manually or with an automated linebreaking script.

Didn't see this mentioned:

"Apple is loosening its grip on its app development for its mobile devices, announcing Thursday that it will drop restrictions on what programming tools developers can use to create iOS apps."  (CNN, September 10, 2010)

Not sure exactly what consequences this would have for an AGS port, but at least the Flash people seem happy about it.

Edit: More info on the Apple developer's site. You can find the released review guidelines here if you don't have a log-in. Best quote: "We don't need any more Fart apps."

I promise not to call iXAGE

That's a shame actually, I quite like the ring of it. Not sure how you pronounce it, but applying my own "hearing" of XAGE as "sage" would make iXAGE sound like "ice age" - to me that's pretty damn cool (no pun intended). Great work anyhow, clarvalon. I'll probably shoot you a PM within a couple of days, because this whole cross-platform AGS idea really intrigues me and I'd like to hear your thoughts on a related project that I'm planning.

This kind of puzzles is the reason I loathe most post-LucasArts adventure games. I mean, either the secretary believes you're a doctor or she doesn't - if she's skeptical enough not to let you in wearing a white coat and a badge, t's not like a stethoscope will change her mind. Wouldn't it make more sense to have to find a surgical mask and a shower cap or something else that hides your identity, so she doesn't recognize you as the guy she's turned away five times before?

ben can you tell me was there any thought to what happens to Fiona while you play as amber? or is she just dead?

Spoiler

The way I understood it, Fiona was dead before the game started - Amber only imagines her sitting on the bench in the park because she hasn't come to terms with Fiona's death yet, and they used to come there together.

[close]

Edit: BTW, I didn't think about it earlier, but atmosphere wise Eternally Us reminded me a lot of Today I Die. Very different gameplay mechanics, but the changes in moods and overall structure are quite similar.

Haven't they been using the Unreal Engine since 1998? The Doom 3 thing was a misunderstanding.

Is there any special reason why the release candidates come as installer EXEs and the RAR file is released later? Would seem to make more sense the other way around - at the moment I have RC1 to 3 as well as the final version in my start menu that I have to uninstall to get rid of. Not a big deal, just seems odd. Is it to make sure that the installer has also been tested?