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Nice, congrats! 

I hate to ask, but could we please extend one extra day to Friday?  I'm so close but only have a little time to code the next few nights, but then I have all Friday off and can submit it Friday night.

Oh neat, thank you!  I'd never even seen that function before.

Update, 1 minute later:  Lol, disregard, I'm stupid.  I read all of my global script earlier and missed that he starts off under set_default_options with scaling at 1% so he can zoom up to 100%.  So clicking default didn't make him invisible, just teeny tiny.

Figures I puzzled over that for half an hour earlier, then solved it immediately once I posted.  Sorry, ignore me!


Original: Hi all!  I'm working in the Sierra template, haven't changed anything in the GUI's for it.  But for some reason, when the gPanel is open, if I click Default, it makes the player invisible.  He's still there, the screen moves when he walks across it, just can't see him.  Any idea why?

Hi everybody!  I'm coding a character named Distracted to annoyingly follow as Ego runs away, talking every 5 seconds in the background, saying 1 of 5 different phrases in order each time he talks.

The code below works.  Timer 1 is when to speak, timer 2 is just to fake a speech view animation over the SayBackground's.

But I'd really like Distracted to only talk when he's close to Ego, because otherwise he doesn't need to say "excuse me". 

I tried a couple if statements inside the (IsTimerExpired(1)) section, first using AreThingsOverlapping, then replacing that with checking if Distracted's x/y were close enough to Ego's.  The first way Distracted never spoke, the second he just kept talking every 5 seconds instead of only when he was close to Ego.

Can anyone think of a way to add "only talk when close to Ego" code to this, please?

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute_always()
{

if (DistractedSeen == 1) {  //This activates in Room 1 code when Ego crosses a region near Distracted.  The region then disables.
  cDistracted.FollowCharacter(cEgo, 10, 0);  //Start chasing and wandering near Ego.
  }
  
if (IsTimerExpired(1)) {  //This timer also activates for 200 cycles when Ego first enters that room 1 region.
 DistractedTalk ++;       //Started at value 0.
  if (DistractedTalk == 1) {
    cDistracted.LockView(29, eKeepMoving); //Speech view
    SetTimer(2, 70); //Speech view timer
    cDistracted.SayBackground("Oops.  Shall we dance?");
    SetTimer(1, 200); //Distracted won't talk again for 5 seconds.
    }
  else if (DistractedTalk == 2) {
    cDistracted.LockView(29, eKeepMoving); //Speech view
    SetTimer(2, 80); //Speech view timer
    cDistracted.SayBackground("Ha, well THAT just happened.");
    SetTimer(1, 200); //Distracted won't talk again for 5 seconds.
    }
  else if (DistractedTalk == 3) {
    cDistracted.LockView(29, eKeepMoving); //Speech view
    SetTimer(2, 65); //Speech view timer
    cDistracted.SayBackground("Whoops, excuse me.");
    SetTimer(1, 200); //Distracted won't talk again for 5 seconds.
    }
  else if (DistractedTalk == 4) {
    cDistracted.LockView(29, eKeepMoving); //Speech view
    SetTimer(2, 120); //Speech view timer
    cDistracted.SayBackground("We just keep running into each other, ha ha.");
    SetTimer(1, 200); //Distracted won't talk again for 5 seconds.
    }
  else if (DistractedTalk == 5) {
    cDistracted.LockView(29, eKeepMoving); //Speech view
    SetTimer(2, 70); //Speech view timer
    cDistracted.SayBackground("Oh, ha.  Awkward.");
    SetTimer(1, 200); //Distracted won't talk again for 5 seconds.
    DistractedTalk = 0; //Loop back to the start of the different phrases.
    }
}

if (IsTimerExpired(2)) { // Speech view timing for Distracted
  cDistracted.UnlockView();
  }

} //End of repeatedly_execute_always

We can all do it!  I believe in us!  I'm in my holiday coding binge as we speak! 

Still plugging away!  I finished all the basic character art and talk cycles, now I'm just working on the one shot animations.  They're not pretty but I'm finding working in retro pixel art incredibly freeing...also finally discovered my Procreate app's animation assist function that auto onion skins, so that's speeding it up.

Also got the intro done, and a bunch of the interaction responses.  I've got a four day weekend for the holiday and three day weekend after that, so it's looking good to finish, barring catastrophes!

I'm slow but progressing...birthday and anniversary are over. I realized my first idea wasn't feasible timewise, so one week in I wrote a completely different game and am having a lot of fun doing retro pixel art instead.  It's called Worlds Literally Collide, about a planet who just wants some g****mn peace and quiet in his own little patch of space.

Backgrounds are done, half of the characters are done and the other half should only take a couple hours.  Then it's just write and code like crazy.

Ah, there we go, thank you!  I didn't realize it was in that user folder, I kept searching the Compiled folder thinking it should be saved in there like the old Sierra games did.

Makes sense, I get it now!  Thanks again!

Hi all!  It's been a while since I made a game, and this is probably blindingly obvious - if I saved a game while testing my game, how do I delete it from the saved games list before distributing the game?

Thanks for your help!

Long time y'all!  I don't want to promise anything because November has become a month of birthday and anniversary celebrations.  But I need a small creative project, I've got a good idea and 90% of the plot worked out.

I'm also going to try painting my backgrounds and characters in Procreate this time, instead of rampantly stealing and modding vector art.

Fingers crossed, hope to see you at the finish line!

Stupot and Limpingfish: Sure, I get what you're saying.  I like the idea too that developers voluntarily reduced prices without it being a requirement.  That's just tried and true marketing technique - do a temporary sale to get your product out there, then return to normal price when you've driven up popularity.

Maybe I'm thinking too much towards regularly produced content like podcasts and other weekly-ish content creators, where the consumer gets a continuous, guaranteed reward in exchange for a continuous, tiny trickle of patron money invested.  I can see how a one-shot product like a game would be different...no guarantees of more content for possibly years at a time, if ever, so less incentive to financially support it.

Anyways, good luck to everybody in the awards!

Phew, got my votes in just in time!    Being honest, between the horror games (which I don't play) and the pay-up-front games, I only played and voted in a few categories I could fairly judge.

Not to get all economics-philosophical, but I was surprised by the number of pay-up-front games, too.

I'm a firm believer in the new pay-what-you-will online creative market...letting people try your high-quality game first creates way more long term fans who return to buy future games/merch/etc.  If you genuinely made something good, trust your new fans to support you.  If you didn't, you shouldn't be charging.  (Not aimed at anyone here - this is just something I've strongly believed for years.)

Maybe a requirement for consideration in future AGS awards should be free evaluation copies to anyone who requests it, with controlled download links that are shut down after the awards?

Copy-pasting this from the actual game page, because it deserves to be said more than once:

This was absolutely gorgeous, well designed, well executed, just a brilliant short adventure.

The story was wonderful, and the mood was borderline-storybook-scary without ever veering into actual horror, which I appreciated.

The dialogue was excellent, always driving driving plot forward and showing depth to the characters.

Art and animation were beautiful, I can't wait to see the full graphical remake.

The one bit with the clever game mechanic - you'll know when you see it - OH MY GOD I loved that so much.  Like every other puzzle in this, it wasn't too hard, juuust sneaky enough that when you catch on to it, you still feel satisfied for figuring it out.

Even the last couple sentences of the closing made me smile.

Jan, you've outdone yourself, which is really saying something with the quality of everything you make.

Story by Robert McKee is mind-blowing.  He uses film stories, but the way he analyzes story structure, breaks down the beats of well-paced story sequences, etc...it'll make you understand story and look at your writing process in a whole new way.

I say this as someone who has read SO MANY books by writers who never made it as writers, so they wrote writing books about something they weren't successful at.  You see the same advice over and over about plot structure and characterization, and it usually amounts to nothing more than "just try really hard to be creative guys, okay??  TRUST YOURSELF AND FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS OK? GUYS?? OK???"

Even super awesome author Neil Gaiman fell prey to this - yes, he's amazing and successful and I love all his works.  But he produced a Masterclass on writing that's the same old fluff you read in every amateur book on writing.  He's great at what he does, but didn't have anything new to say, but wanted to say it anyways.

McKee's book isn't like that.  It's a genuine masterwork, like when Scott McCloud broke down comics.

Beautiful art!  Very Watchman/Sandman/Eisner.

WHAM:  Love that idea, a chosen one goldfish being carried by some poor second fiddle is hilarious.

Sorry, I am very late to the party, hadn't stopped by the forums in a bit! I'll try to belatedly get my assets in tonight! Thanks so much for the noms, and huge congratulations to all the amazing creators, you made great stuff!

Our former building manager was in the "masks make you sick" camp. My desk co-worker believes masks do nothing, so he takes his off, then points a big fan across himself directly at me, removing all social distance. And the other guy down the hall they need to talk to thinks it's a government plot to control everyone, masks are a means of mental subjugation.

So good news bad news - our anti-masker building manager finally retired. I finally reported all the other anti-maskers and virus-hoaxers in our building.

And then nearly got fired.

We got an email reminding us all that it's law - you have to wear a mask in public spaces like lobbies, restrooms, etc. Not just recommended, actual law.

I responded, asking how to approach hardcore anti-maskers, thinking the person who sent the email was a low level employee like me.

Turned out they were about as high as you could go in our chain of command, AND hardcore pro-mask, so they opened up a can on the people running our building about getting their employees in line.

So the kneejerk reaction of those lower managers was to consider firing me for "jumping the chain of command" and getting them in trouble. They heard me out and I kept my job, although of course several people are still really pissed at me.

Still a couple folks for them to deal with, including a coworker from my front desk who heard what I'd done and decided to double down on being even more anti-mask? I had to politely ask him to remask, which made him blow up at me but eventually comply.

Oh well. The variants are starting to sweep our area, so we can't afford the lazy, angry and selfish children anymore.

Ponch:  Thanks for the encouragement.   I've made a command decision, though - I'm taking a break from game making for a while to boost my skills.  I really want to learn how to digitally paint and grow as an artist and animator.

It's nice being able to mash together and mod other people's work (and steal heavily from Vecteezy.com), but I want to make my own quality stuff.  I want my games to be pro-level art-wise when I come back.

I'll probably be hanging out more in the critiquing forums until then.   Cheers and best of luck to everybody here!