Messages

Heh, I was going to bring up the case that someone is good at two areas of game design too. I suppose dividing by team role is a way to make more balanced teams, but what if there are 5 coders, 5 musicians, 8 story writers and 3 artists? Such a situation might come up,and it'll be difficult to divide this way. One of the challenges of a team challenge was to work with what was available, if there were two writer's on one team, and 2 artist on another, different areas of these teams games might have different quality. Then again, more than one coder on a team isn't useful, it's very difficult to pass coding from one to the other, because of style and other issues.
forget it, I'm just rambling. I'm sure whatever the organisator tries will work eventually.

There will be a theme/rules, yes?

I see, because it's on a GUI, it can't recognise it as a click to interact like it does with hotspots. Thanks .

I tried something with including an integer in the text, and using an int in the room didn't work, it displayed 44704 or some value like that, instead of 16, the assigned value, and using an int in the global script didn't help. I only managed to do this this way:

function DisplayAtDefault (string message, ...) {

DisplayAt (100, 50, 40, message, coins_amount);

}
in which case it works, but only with global scope variables, or GlobalInts, and it's specific to this variable.

Also, does it matter if you use "import function DoStuff (int first, int second);" or "import function DoStuff (int, int);" ? I may have asked this before and forgotten .

[string]

I don't know about setting a default, but you could create a custom function:

function DisplayAtDefault (string message, ...) {

DisplayAt (100, 50, 40, string message, ...);

}

- - - - - - - - - -
DisplayAtDefault ("This is displayed in the default place.");

However, I'm not entirely sure that the ... thing will work, it's supposed to allow you to include int and strings in your messages, something like this:

int coins_amount = 35;

DisplayAtDefault ("You have %d coins.", coins_amount);

[Darth-]

Darth-That's not what I meant, I meant having, for example, half a GUI fully transparent, and half full opaque. That's a nice tip though, it may well come in handy later .

2) On a different note, if I have a background that doesn't fill the whole space left for backgrounds, can I make the mouse cursor invisible and disbale the verbcoin gui? Is it even possible to disable just one GUI? I was thinking of doing this using hotspots. Or I could use SetMouseBounds andsimply stop the mouse from moving somewhere else. Hmm..

You can have those four GUIs resized acordingly to the background surrounding area, thus a verbcoin won't pop up. To disable a single gui one has to disable each of its objects with SetGUIObjectEnabled.

Well, in this case I don't have those four GUIs, but I prefer the idea of using SetMouseBounds.

P.s. Also another question, to which I'm pretty certain the answer is yes, just making sure- Do verbcoins work on top of other GUIs, like inventory?

It can be made to work. You then, though, have to catch mouse clicks on the GUI_MUP event through the on_event function and to have a separate code calling inventory interactions by means of RunInventoryInteraction.

Ah, ok, so that's a bit more complicated thanI thought. I just assumed that it recognised inventory items too. Are Inventory item names shown when using an @OVERHOTSPOT@?

Thanks for your help

I have two main questions:

1) Is it possible, when using GUIs that cover up the whole screen, to have part of the gui transparent (the one with the background behind it, specifically) and cnot clickable, and the borders clickable with buttons, etc.. If it is possible, is it worth the bother or should I just use 4 border GUIs?

2) On a different note, if I have a background that doesn't fill the whole space left for backgrounds, can I make the mouse cursor invisible and disbale the verbcoin gui? Is it even possible to disable just one GUI? I was thinking of doing this using hotspots. Or I could use SetMouseBounds andsimply stop the mouse from moving somewhere else. Hmm..

P.s. Also another question, to which I'm pretty certain the answer is yes, just making sure- Do verbcoins work on top of other GUIs, like inventory?

It's also a creative outlet for ideas and for whatever else you might be creative with. I like making games because it's good practicein the art of game making, but also because, sometimes, I have a story to tell, and cause I enjoy the process very much.

Ah, I see, thanks for the subtle hint gal Nice ending rtf..

I think it'd be a good idea to not have the teams just making an original game, but making it accroding to a few rules and/or a theme, closer to mags. I find that themes and other rules make it easier to think up a story etc, because there's a direction and you don't need to just wait for ideas to pop up. It should be quite a free theme though.
And if the competition is to be shorter, there shouldn't really be a requirement for having cutscenes, maybe just and intro and outro, with of course, pre-scripted scenes, but I wouldn't call them cutscenes. What do you think?

And yes, how were the teams decided? Random? Something in my memory involves putting the names in winamp as if they were songs and then telling winamp to shuffle and play. Hmm..

I seem to be stuck in Maggie's part..

Spoiler

I have the copper wire, I've walked around, and talked to the shady guy far too many times. The hesaurus and Dictionary seem useless, what am I supposed to look up?

[close]

Thanks in advance for help .

Heh, yes, the LEC inventory works the same way as the default inventory works. The Interact mode selects items, and use inventory on this item interaction allows you to ceck which inventory was used and act accordingly.

Let's see, what do I know about Israel.. Well, for one thing, israel seems to want to copy america, like it's an idol to worship, which truly annoys me. yes, here too 13 is about the age that many girls get a screw loose and start dressing like exotic dancers(let's have some variety shall we ), though it doesn't seem to reach the level in america by what you're saying. But yes, most girls regard fashion very highly (i'm proud not to include myself in that group ).

Fun facts:
- No, Not everyone in Israel is religious.
- Yes, both the financial situation and the safety situation are terrible. It is a common joke to say "...it's because of the situation." about something that goes wrong, at least that's how it seems to me.. I've pretty much lost interest in listening to the news.
- Most present israeli music (eastern music it's also called) is, in my opinion, bad, to say the least, but for some reason a lot of people here like it. If I had to listen to israeli music, I'd prefer older music, it was much better IMO.
- As far as I know (as I said, I don't follow news with too much care) there hasn't been a terrorist act in some time, but I still can't say our country is safe.
- Here too almost everyone owns a cellular phone, even kids at the age of 8. I've had one since I was 12.
- Also, there've been a lot of talks about drugs in our school lately, so I'm guessing that aspect isn't in a good state either.

Well then, maybe another israeli AGSer can tell you more about this godforsaken (not literally, I just find this word expresses how I feel better than 'damned' or 'crazed') country.
Insteresting discuaaion topic, actually, I didn't expect to have much to say.

What are invites? Do you mean you get to invite a number of people to use gmail? Is it a part of beta-testing?

Questions about AGS games or just general trivia? For AGS or Adventure games, you could ask about the setting etc.. Like, for example: Is the game Apprentice set in a busy industrial city? Or something like that..

edit: Oh wait, I may have misunderstood you, are you talking about the game where you think of something and then the computer needs to guess it by asking questions? I've never heard it called 40 questions though.

A few days is a bit too short on time, no? Maybe something between 10-20, though a month seems ok too. I'd be interested in participating, since I wasn't here the first time this wasdone. Were the teams divided randomly or by role in game making? I think a random division is more challenging, and I believe that's how it was the first time, though I don't know for sure. But I agree about having guidelines that the game shouldn't be very big, just a game with a few rooms, and try not to take up too much time in the pre-production phase. I'd say the summer holidays are a good time to do this.

I think there's something called GUI export, which exports all the GUIs in a game, and you can import them all later, instead of using a template to do this. Maybe that'll work?

I'll throw in a vote for Petteri, because those things look like hairs in a hair commercial.

Good luck Kandyman! Geez, I wish I got to do something like this for an assignment.. But the only projects we'll be doing in school will be mostly internet proramming.
Are you studying game design? There doesn't seem to be a game design faculty anywhere in this damned..un-game-design-ish.. country..
Anyway, I like your story, and would point you to the GTDs had it not already been obvious that you know about them.. There was one on character design you might find useful, and the others can also be of imporatnce. I noticed they've been moved to the Popular Threads forum.
Audience immersion - athmosphere is very important here I'd say, there's a GTD on this too, and there's Grim Fandango and other games.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck! How much time did you get for the assignment anyway?

P.s. About those tips on adventure developers, are you sure there were 50? I remember a list of 21 tips by Bill Tiller and Larry Ahern I believe, game design tips basically, though they are prettty much about playability rather thanthe whole audience involvement theme you're interested in, so maybe this is a different list of tips. I have a printed copy of the 21 tips..
When is adventuredevelopers returning anyway?

Nice fun game here, havn't finished it yet though .

I get my ideas from all over the place. I guess if I'm actually trying to find a story, I think of a setting or something like that, but mostly, ideas can come from anywhere. I would go outside to get inspiration, but there is rarely anything interesting going on here.. Still, just a few days ago, I was watching a program on The National Geographic Channel, and got an idea.
As for starting with ags, I'd say make up a simple 1-2 puzzle "story", and make a small game out of it, but let yourself play around with the enginge and try everything out. It becomes much more natural to use this way. Tutorials first though .

Btw, welcome!