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Maybe you could use the UNDERWATER Module? It's specifically made for animated "ripple effects".

Yes, let's all go and try and get permission from JJ Abrahms to use your sprite dbuske because you know, that's normal routine for most of us.

Actually, I have the guy on speed dial. Don't you all?

I did my game in 16-bit, and I'm pretty sure I had a reason for that though I can't recall.  Anyway, good luck!

As far as I see it, 8bit has fallen out of favour because the only thing AGS can do in on other colour depth is palette cycling*. It could be fun for a truly retro game but the restrictions aren't really worth the effort.
16bit is the catch-all standard that supports lots of colours and works just fine with your average project.
32bit gives you alpha transparency and works better with very fine gradients. The only downside is that a 32bit game will probably be larger.

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* A sweet little effect where specific colours cycle through different shades, very nice for water and shimmer effects. It looked awesome in at least three LucasArts games.

1) Pick a resolution (320x200, in my case)

And a colour depth, because once you change it you are often required to re-import each and every sprite you already have in the game.

You can use that box to write a short summary of your game- a teaser text or blurb, so to speak.

Played, commented and rated. Well done Stupot: That's just how power naps play out in real life

On the pointers point - I may be using the terminology wrong (definitely still a beginner!) - I meant that there would be a single cursor that was used for walk, but that the image of the cursor would change if it goes over something you can interact with (e.g. change to a different colour - I think this was the way it worked in Monkey Island 3)

That's relatively simple too. All you need to is check if your cursor is over something that allows interaction, and then change the sprite used by the cursor mode.
You also need to check what the mouse is currently over. A simple way (that may need some tweaking) would be to set the inactive sprite when the cursor "isn't over any thing", and to an active sprite of it is over "any thing".

So two commands are useful:
Mouse.ChangeModeGraphic(CursorMode, int slot) allows you to change the sprite used by a mouse mode. You could use a white and red cursor arrow, for example.
GetLocationType checks what type of "thing" is at the tested position.
You can read the details in the help file, but here's a code snippet:

Code: ags

if (GetLocationType(mouse.x, mouse.y) == eLocationNothing)
  Mouse.ChangeModeGraphic(Mouse.Mode, INACTIVE_SPRITE_SLOT);
else
  Mouse.ChangeModeGraphic(Mouse.Mode, ACTIVE_SPRITE_SLOT);

You want to put that into the repeatedly_execute function of your global script- should work right out of the box.

Note: The functionality of the mouse/mode isn't affected; all you do is changing the visuals, so even with an "inactive" sprite clicks will still be executed. You may want to block clicks depending on the used mode or desired type of interface.

Probledayish happybirthes! See? You can ALWAYS make it sillier!
Have a fun day, Problem

Happy one, kconan! Celebreationingz to you

Not that I know anything about these sort of games, of course.

Time to reinstall Citizen Kabuto. The GERMAN version, naturally

There's no actual keyword to browse the database by, though games do have ratings for nudity, explicit language and violence- but those do not make an "adult game" (often the direct opposite ).

If you wish to find that stuff you'll really have to do the work yourself; a good idea is to keep tabs on the Games In Production thread- check the first post, read the blurb and then await the release. For games already in the database, do the same with the Completed Games section.

All in all, explicit sex is rarely found in AGS games, as are full-on nudity. If you enjoy witty cheesecake stuff though, I recommend the Barn Runner series: http://www.barnrunner.com/

The manual also is not "online", as in, you don't need to be connected to the internet in order to launch and read it. It's a chm help file.

No problem at all; as I said I really appreciate the effort you went through.

I like it when I can start a game where one sentence tells you what it's going to be like. That summary needn't hold the whole plot or anything very specific, just a hard strong core. If that one clicks, that's a good enough start for me. A good example is Once Upon A Crime: "In a patchwork land where all fairy tales are real, a new tale tries to take roots." That was all I had for a game where the player would later play Red Riding Hood (Junior Private Investigator) discovering that her world is a computer game threatened by a virus.

After that I like to flesh out at least the main character and some hard facts about the setting, mood, story. I tend to make up pretty elaborate backstory even for small projects, stuff the player probably never learns about, but for me it's easier to put relevant things into a game when I know more than the player. For the main character I like to have a good solid background and some strong traits and I usually do a full set of static sprites before I put the game framework together.

And finally, I always write my ending first. It's a trick I picked up from a series of articles about IF game design. When you know the ending, you can always ask yourself how you got there. And that's better than asking "where do I go from here" because you already are at the destination. From that I try to come up with a few "milestones" in the game. Again, for Once Upon A Crime, this was "learn there was a crime", "interrogate the suspects", "get everything to make a truth serum", "find out there is a different threat", "defeat it with a hanky". Puzzles between those milestones often just pop up as the game takes shape. Maybe there is some interesting line in a dialog, or a cool inventory item that could get more use, or just a leftover location where something interesting could happen. That's the real fun, actually, making things up as I go along- some guidelines are there but the rest is freeform. I learned the hard way that the minute I have a game fully planned out on paper I lose all interest in it

So yeah: Strong core idea, a reliable character design, an ending I want the player to see, and some notes. That's Ghost planning (tm).

[@Ghost :]

When you click the "quit button" then the standard "Quit/Play" built-in dialog window appears but the text is shifted down 5 pixels lower or so. Its upper part is on the button, but its lower part pours out.
I haven't seen that with any other 3.3.0 RC1 game, so I guess it's caused by the template.

Yes, the text shift is caused by the template replacing the default fonts with ttfs that support the full range of characters. I am aware of this, but so far nobody really complained about it, and these days you see very few of the build-in windows being used anyway. I'll document it in an updated version- the solution is to simply reset the fonts.

@Ghost : I have migrated your template to 32-bits. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THAT VERSION AND DO ALL YOUR FURTHER CHANGES BASED ON IT.

I appreciate your work, but out of interest: I understand that 16bit is the hard default and 32bit isn't used that often and several people avoid it to keep their game smaller. Isn't it simpler to upgrade the (very few) sprites yourself when you want 32bit? I am genuinely curious.

[Skulls of the Shogun]

I redeemed Skulls of the Shogun. Thanks a lot sir, I missed that thing on at least two sales! May your limp be forever strong.

Technically the position of a character is always the centre of their sprite's bottom (in a normal sprite, just between their feet). You should be able to at least find the x position you need very reliably- and then tweak the y axis a little until everything looks smooth.

Since the room preview only allows you to see the character's walk view, one simple workaround would be to replace the first frame of your walkcycle with the sitting sprite, then move it around as required, and then replace the sprites in the view. It's awkward but should get the job done. You can also, in-game, press CTRL D to get exhaustive info about position/frame/state of everything in a room to calculate from that (that's a useful debugger code especially in low-res games where you can count pixels with ease).

I did try out the scale ration btw, and 120 is a relatively weak scale- do you actually need to scale up the character at this point? It's a personal thing but I avoid to put any critical animations in places where characters scale, it often leads to odd results, especially when a scaling character interacts with a non-scaling object.

It's probably not worth the effort. I am not a pro coder but as far as I know a zipped file is no longer readable, and needs to be decompressed to allow the data to be used. Zipping them for distribution is the sensible thing, sure, but once unzipped and compared to the size of the "usual games out there" I don't think any AGS game could be called a big thing. The engine dev team will be able to answer your question better, but as far as I see it: Only a very small part of any AGS game is an actual executable. That's more or less the engine. If the engine was rather large, and could just load a chunk of assets and interpret it at run time, then your approach would not just sensible, it would be the most logical and resource friendly approach. But as it it, AGS games are almost self-contained, and zipping the upload is already the common practise, so there is little room for improvement here.

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* Fun fact: If I had a dollar for every post complaining that a game/the engine/a module doesn't run from within a zip file, I'd have about three King Size Meals (and two extra sauces) worth of moneys.

Cool, thanks for your input!
If you're interested, I would gladly share the design document with you guys, and you could give me some feedback on the ideas? I trust you don't run away with any potentially marketable ideas, but I count on you to say if it's been done to death already

Always fun to read a GDD- I'll gladly have a look and NOT run away with it

I've dabbled in it, and once made a fun physical board game with some friends. Far from an expert though but I'd like to share two sources that helped me greatly:

Dice Tower: A review channel for (often elaborate) board games, with a look at the pieces, mechanics, and what works well. It's entertaining enough on its own.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiwBbXQlljGjKtKhcdMliRA

The Game Crafter: A tool to make your own board game and its parts. Also a nice community there.
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/

Also: As a German I am contractually required to tell you how awesome (Settlers of) Catan is and how you should own at least the base game.
But personally I enjoy several board games that take a while for a small group to play through, with heavy interaction between the players. Talisman, Dungeon Prowl, the Munchkin Series (started as card game, but they have an actual boardgame by now and it is ridiculous!) are all games where you can help and screw up your friends and that's something I love in a game. Solo board games are nice too.
And I don't know, I love games with lots of pieces. Setting up a campaign in the Doom boardgame just feels great with all the cards and miniatures.