Messages

What a game! I got 820 (on baby mode)

My thoughts: Even on baby mode, the bonus time should scale down to 0:45 after 20 or so laps. It just gets tedious racing for that long, grinding out 1-2 sec advantages here and there.

All in all, an excellent game though. Serious nostalgia over the graphics. Well done!

I think I'm late to the party with the version number thing but I'll give my opinion anyway. I don't think we need a fourth number. You could release 3.3.0 hotfix 4 as "3.3.2". We could mark 3.3.1 as abandoned. That way there's no confusion between it and the old develop-3.3.1 branch. It will just be like we skipped 3.3.1. When 3.4.0 is released, we can use the third digit for hotfixes. e.g. 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3.

For 3.4.0, I have the following definites:
* Runtime Type Information table -- if I ever figure it out
* switch...case statement -- just need time to implement this, I know how the assembly should look

Aaaand lots of others in various states:

Spoiler

Maybes:
* Allow variable declarations in a for loop's initialiser (e.g. for(int i = 0; ...)
* Locking of room objects (like locking GUI controls) -- I started on this and have a patch somewhere
* Type coercion of ints/floats to make maths functions more beginner friendly

Won'ts:
* Use a web browser control for the AGS start page -- too many issues with the docking suite, no point really
* Custom speech rendering (like custom dialog rendering) -- would love it, but it's soooo complicated

[close]

I would also like to present another tiny addition to AGS and see what others think. Currently in winsetup.exe, when choosing a language, the default is called Game Default. To me, Game Default doesn't tell the user anything about the language they're choosing. I would like to be able to optionally name the default language in the general settings of a project so that it could be listed in the dropdown like:
English (Default)
Deutsch
Magyar

What do you guys think? Is this silly? I would really like it because I plan to offer American English with British English as a translation (confusing at the best of times!). I thought I might be able to squeeze it in as we're overhauling winsetup.exe in 3.4.0 anyway.

Regarding limits, CW, can we merge stuff from the "no limits" branch of AGS where it won't break the save file and game file formats?

Oh, and monkey_05_06 I'm very excited about being able to target Linux from the editor! Would love it for 3.4.0

Sorry, what does "Stretch to fit screen (window)" do? I'm looking at "keep aspect ratio" directly beneath it and it's a bit puzzling.

I usually check with Babar and ignore everything he says.

Should I rename the 3.3.1 threads to 3.4.0? I've been thinking about it, but I don't want to cause confusion with the _other_ 3.4.0.

or better: Enviroment.GetPlatformId()
// returns: Android, Windows, Linux, iOS, PSP, other...

Regarding this, there is System.OperatingSystem, which returns eOSDOS, eOSLinux, eOSWindows or eOSMac. It would probably be a good idea to add Android, PSP System Software and iOS to this enum at some point. I don't know of any way to detect Android specifically at the moment.

Something about turnips?

Putting it in your game_start function in your GlobalScript.asc should be enough. You can add this function if you don't already have it:

Code: ags

function game_start()
{
    Game.MinimumTextDisplayTimeMs = 5000;
}

game_start gets run as soon as the game starts (before the first room is loaded).

Oooh lambda expressions!

I have run into a few things where the syntax is easier in 3.5/4.0, but never impossible in 2.0.

Okay, I've been thinking along similar lines. I don't know how practical it is, but at compile time, we can detect if a symbol exists (e.g. Character::FaceDirection)

So something like,

Code: ags

#ifndef_symbol Character::FaceDirection
function FaceDirection(this Character *, CharacterDirection direction, BlockingStyle block)
{
// User's face direction shim in here
}
#endif

would be possible.

I think I prefer your suggestion though. Could we make it a simple float (e.g. 2.72, 3.40) and extend its use to any defined macro? That way, someone could do:

Code: ags

#ifdef MI_9VERB_TEMPLATE_VERSION < 1.31
Display("This feature isn't available without the latest MI verb template.");
#endif

Anyway, no objections from me. I'm just sorry to cause such trouble. I thought because everyone implemented it, it would be a good candidate for inclusion.

I do not really understand what you mean by "without the text locking me out of choosing a option and disappearing"... Please, elaborate.

I think he might mean using Display("") which shows the text, but locks you out of interacting with rest of the interface and then disappears. Rather odd way to describe it though.

Awwww, I was hoping the third group would be in keeping with the drug+alcohol addiction theme. The Point & Click Clinic?

Try dragging the title bar of the properties window over the top of the project tree. While you're dragging it, a set of directional arrows will appear:



Drop it onto the down arrow (as shown).

To draw with a pen instead of the eraser, you need to change the dropdown that says "Walkable area ID 0" to "Walkable area ID 1".

Saints Row?

[{{}, {}, {}}]

There's no such thing as a formal array in Lua, but you can use a table like an array (untested):

Code: lua

local snowflake = {{}, {}, {}} -- 3 snowflakes

function love.load() -- Not sure which engine you're using
	for index = 1, #snowflake
		snowflake[index].x = 5 -- starting positions
		snowflake[index].y = 5
	end
end

function love.update()
	for index = 1, #snowflake
		snowflake[index].x = snowflake[index].x + math.random(-5, 5)
		snowflake[index].y = snowflake[index].y + 1
	end
end

Tables are used for everything in Lua. Arrays, associative arrays, classes, even switch statements. The key concept here is probably "#snowflake" which gets you the number of items (actually the highest integer index for a table).

Comma is how you separate multiple items in a table definition. Also note that if you just comma separate a list, i.e. {{}, {}, {}}, Lua will automatically number them 1, 2 and 3. It's the equivalent of {[1] = {}, [2] = {}, [3] = {}}. To reference a table value by its key (or indeed access an element inside an array), you use square brackets [].

I've intentionally avoided metatables and classes. If you decide to use a class library (or roll your own), you could get fancy by making a Snowflake class and formalise the snowflake objects. But as you can see, simple snowflake objects that just store x and y are easily accomplished using Lua's flexible table system.

Mafia?

I'm sorry, CW. I misdiagnosed the sprite cache problem earlier. Here's a pull request to fix the problem that prevented my game project from loading: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/pull/181

Edit: I can PM you my game project on request, but it's pretty big!

Edit 2: I just submitted the pull request for removing the 50 script limit. Ohhhhh yeah! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKnwHAGXvlE

Crimson Wizard (et al),

Firstly, in the development branch, I've found a problem with the most recent commits for D3D9 front buffer / back buffer stuff. I have a game project with sprite 0 set to:

http://i.imgur.com/ADz2Dtm.png (don't ask why)

The editor fails to load it, complaining that it can't find sprite 0. If I try to run the game data file with the most recent engine, I get a similar error on startup. This doesn't occur when I go back to a commit before 67de2af. Haven't fully investigated it yet. (I'm not asking you to fix it! Just documenting it!)


Secondly, my current large project has too many scripts (according to AGS):



I have exceeded MAX_SCRIPT_MODULES. I couldn't believe the error when I saw it. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. I've got 1 module per extension (e.g. Mouse, Character), and a few extra modules for custom things in "Library", 1 module for each inventory item, global object, character and GUI. Okay, so I'm a bit of a neat freak, but is that an unreasonable way to organise things? (Might be the wrong forum.)

I checked your earlier 3.4.0 branch and there's no mention of MAX_SCRIPT_MODULES as a limit. I think increasing this from 50 to 200 would be sufficient for my needs. We could look at removing the limit in the future.
I monitored memory usage. With max=50, my RAM usage is 30.7MB. With max=200, my RAM usage is 30.8MB. I don't think upping the limit is a huge concern.

Edit: If my request isn't unreasonable, here's a pull request for that script module limit: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/pull/179

Robinson's Requiem?

I have a proposal to rename our development branch to 3.4.0 now, because it has bigger features now (improvements to scripts mostly), and probably will have more, while X.X.N+ versions are meant for very minor improvements and fixes. I was supposed to release a new update to 3.3.0 containing restored letterboxed mode and few other hot-fixes, now I am thinking about actually calling it 3.3.1, and using 3.3.2 number if more hotfixes are required.
(I should have probably done this much earlier).

Are there any objections to this? If not I'll just create a new "develop-3.4.0" branch right where "develop-3.3.1" now is, and the latter may be safely deleted a bit later when everyone gets updated.

No objections from me! Makes a lot more sense than the 3.3.0 Hotfix N approach.