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I just knew it wasn't Quest for Glory, so that left Dragonsphere

Alright! Try this one:

Dragonsphere?

I know the cause! AGA was burning these:

(Centred candles.)

I think this it's this newsbar div that's missing its closing tag:

Code: ags

<div align="center" class="newsbar">

Could it have happened while the bake sale blurb was being removed?

I have a different problem.

Ah! Thankyou! That works much better. I'm not quite sure what these lines do, though:

Code: AGS

  while (x < 0) x += w; x = x % w;
  while (y < 0) y += h; y = y % h;

So, while x < 0, add the width of the image to the offset, and make x the remainder of the division the offset by the width. If I'm reading this correctly, it's making the offset a number between 0 and the width/height of the image?

That's what it does. And if you swap the order of the statements, you don't even need to use while:

Code: ags

x = x % w; if (x < 0) x += w;
y = y % h; if (y < 0) y += h;

It might also be worth wrapping some of those DrawImage calls in if statements to avoid useless draws where x == 0 or y == 0.

In hindsight I should have given $6.41 more (and pushed the grand total to $1,000.00) but I didn't check the total until after I'd submitted the payment!  D'oh!

That's alright! That leaves it open for someone else to swoop in and donate $6.41 to become the person who pushed us over the $1,000 mark! I know people love doing that, so I'm sure it's going to happen soon...

Noooo! Not Spirit of Excalibur. That game was terrible!

ARRRRRGGHHHHH!!! IT WAS!!!

And it cost SO MUCH! And it was so OVER-HYPED on the back cover.

And then whenever you came onscreen in an "encounter" with a few guys on each side the framerate would crawl to snail-speed...

It was overhyped. I remember there was virtually NO choice in the game or at least the interface didn't make it clear. You could choose where you wanted to go on the map and it would sometimes obey you, but once you started an encounter, it wasn't clear at all what was going on. I think there was an orb you could click on or the cursor was an orb. Clicking didn't seem to make any difference anyway. For me, the battles were just luck and the limited "gameplay" was on the map screen. I remember I was so excited when I got it because all of the accompanying material (maps, manuals) made it sound really interesting. I've only got the manuals now (no box), but if someone had the box, it'd be a really good one for the museum thread.

Wowwwww! Darth Mandarb!

Calin, not assigning a value is for wimps.

My swag level has a value and that value is 9.9999999999. You need a double precision float to store that shit. I even increment it by 1 and cause a swag overflow.

Ima' call you Constance 'cause you need to learn how to declare one. Hit me up when you manage to keep it real.

#yolo #swag-diss

So nice to finally see what all that art in Matt's blog was for. The interface looks sweet. Not sure how near future those cybernetic implants will be, but I like the idea and I look forward to playing it. Best of luck!

Manky eye-run... (slight Japanese accent)

Sorry...rather basic one but I had to include just for the "ewwwww factor"

Or a slight Scooby-Doo impression!

Rare Jazz Tutor Wary

Noooo! Not Spirit of Excalibur. That game was terrible!

I love the framing and the limited palettes. Looks straight out of an ancient manuscript. Good luck and I hope you get it done!

I'm still not sure why you think it's important that characters should be able to move exactly so their sprites align with the edge.

I don't. I'm not pursuing this. Both of the methods I've identified aren't really practical.

As for setting character.z, the main reason to my mind is so the character lines up from all angles. If the characters are viewed straight from the side it doesn't matter, but these sprites are viewed from a fairly high angle, so you're getting a lot of perspective effects, where the position of the feet depends a lot on which side you're viewing it from.

My basic assumption is that if the character is standing in a certain spot, the height of the head should be independent of what direction he/she is facing (assuming character standing straight upright). In order to achieve that, the point on the ground right under the head should be used as the character's position. Here's a rough and exaggerated illustration:

[imgzoom]http://i.cubeupload.com/G3llvG.jpg[/imgzoom]

If you always use the center of the circle as the character's coordinate, all the angles and animations should look consistent.

But altering a character's .z value doesn't alter that. The sprites are already drawn so that the centre point of the feet is the centre point of the character's rotation. Billbis' point is worth considering though.

Apart from that, even without this particular AGS quirk you should really set the character.z values anyway, since their feet go several pixels below the baseline of their center point (the point that should probably stay constant if you spin them around).

Hmmm... why do you think the character.z value should be adjusted so that the x/y is at the centre point of their feet? What advantage would that have? I mean, I can see the point of setting character.z to -1, but beyond that, isn't it just going to make the characters clip when they get to the bottom of the screen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaC0vNLdLvY&t=1m15s

I would love to see a screenshot of a room and its walkable areas. Could you reveal just one maybe?

Here you go:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/bKpqbJW.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/E8w1DP6.png[/imgzoom]

Walkable areas are overlaid in blue. Position of the player character is the bright red pixel. The coordinates of the player are shown in the top left. In the first, z = 0. In the second, z = -1. Both are at the same x/y position. Notice the gap between the wall and her foot in the second screenshot.

Like I said, I built all of the walkable areas taking into account the existing (z = 0) behaviour. Oh well :-(. Live and learn.

After setting player.z = -1, I found that I would have to redo all of my walkable areas as the characters no longer lined up with them (off by 1).

I don't understand this at all.
If you initially assumed that the character's bottom row of pixels is drawn exactly at their y position, shouldn't setting player.z to -1 give you exactly what you want?

Why do you have to move all your walkable areas now? If you drew them on the background under the assumption that that's where the player's bottom row of pixels is going to be, you shouldn't have to move them at all.

(Also, using player.z will NOT cause walkbehind issues, "fixing" this issue by shifting the walkable areas will.)

I initially assumed that the way the characters were drawn was correct, so I drew my walkable areas accordingly. I didn't know the bottom row wasn't drawn exactly at their y position until you pointed it out. Setting player.z to -1 gives me the ideal positioning, but I'd already started building the game around a faulty positioning model.

(Also, using player.z will NOT cause walkbehind issues, "fixing" this issue by shifting the walkable areas will.)

Understood, I'll change the top post.

Happy birthday, AprilSkies!