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Answering... to Jared(one man's exceptional graphics)..CHECK INFINITY STRING..(by the way it got an award for visuals)

Yeah, I looked it up last night after seeing your comment. I'm on dial-up, though, so the [meagre] size was off-putting then. But I'll d/l now and give you my verdict later.

(Sure does look pretty...)


EDIT: Hmm, crashed my download manager a little over an hour into it. Might leave it aside for the moment..

There sometimes seems to be a trend, as well, that I've noticed where people who make really, REALLY good graphics and make it all look as completely PROFESSIONAL as possible... don't spend much time on the writing. Or learning about writing. And it can show. I'm thinking, in particular, about "Unnamed Project Joe", if anybody else was following that project, and the utterly heartbreaking experience of playing that demo.

Of course, I don't want to generalise - there are some polymaths out there. But generally I'm highly sceptical of any solo-, two-man jobs out there with brilliant graphics...

Some years ago, walking around on the joits of our new house-to-be I slipped and managed to fork myself - that is, the joist slamming into my balls (or vice versa) at high velocity. I remember being winded for about a minute. No broken bones, though, so I feel kind of wimpy by comparison in this thread.

I think that incident, however, is directly responsible for me being reeeally unimpressed by the torture scene in Casino Royale. All these people go on about how brutal it was, but I was thinking "That doesn't look like it'd hurt that bad..."

My first game (Secret Agent on Roller Skates) is coming along rather well, so I'll say late November.

...I'm sorry, I thought a closed community was somewhere like Outpost Gallifrey, where you can't even view the forums before you register. AGS forums are fully accessible, along with their games, which are linked quite a lot online. I'll admit that awareness doesn't seem as high as I'd have thought it should be, but unless you work by radically different definitions I don't know how you can call the community closed.

Off-topic: aren't you full yet?

Also, on the subject of 'not notable' how about this, this, and this?

Yeah, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I really do have to wonder about the gaming history of somebody who says 5DAS is the greatest of all time. As much as I love the AGS community I'm yet to play any games coming near the classic LucasArts/Revolution/Sierra heights of quality.

Ah, thanks a heap! Those DemoQuest docs are much more like what I'm used to.

As far as your suggestion is concerned you can do something similar now by using modules to contain the interaction code.  And then the only thing that needs to be in the global script is the interaction handler and a call to the code in your module. 

Yeah, that was the idea. Guess I'll have to read up on how the AGS modules work. But now I'm on my way. Thanks again.

I only really got into adventure games in about 1998/1999 - when the 'death' of adventure games was already being declared and they stopped coming out. After I played through Discworld 2, DoTT, S&M, the MI series, Grim Fandango and what Space Quests I could I looked around online for more. Eventually I found adventuredevelopers.com (Incredible to think, that used to be a very good site!) and from there Yahtzee, and from there AGS.

When I downloaded it... I don't know, I was barely able to do anything without making it crash, it was early days. All I basically did was put some Bill Tiller stuff in there and walkable areas and I thought that in itself was pretty amazing. To my shame I found out about Glumol and was one of the crowd waiting out for 'something better', but AGS is definitely the best of the best, and now that I actually know how to program I'm making my own game and having a ball doing it.

I knew I was going to end up making a game one way or another. I don't know if anyone else has done this, but I've often spent my spare time writing walkthroughs for imaginary games... 

There is a difference between character's sprites resolution. I don't like that...

You know, there seems to be an imperceptible yet tangible pattern to the contents of your posts...

I've been programming in Java for 2 years at TAFE and have got the hang of the language pretty well, along with the Object-Oriented principles. (Not gotten the hang of handing in assignments in time but that's neither here nor there..) I've noticed that the AGS scripting language is quite similar, but then I think I read it was based on C so that makes sense.

Anyway, firstly I've been taught that encapsulation is the key to good programming, and that 100+ line code so should be avoided outside of driver classes, so when I read that "All character interaction must be handled in the Global Script" a warning light goes off in my head. For some context I'm making a LECScumm gui game at the moment so my Global Script is already 400+ lines just with click handling. Here's something I know would work in Java and that's creating a Characters script where all the code goes, so that the GlobalScript bits would look like this:

cGinny_mode8(){
    cGinny_click();
}

And the code would then be really easy to use. Any reason why that wouldn't work?

Also, I was wondering about the scope of variables. I'm assuming at the moment that an int is only accessible within it's native class (as in Java), but does the AGS language support Getters to make this job easier? Do they look any different from

int getDoorLocked(){
    return doorLocked;
}

Sorry if these questions are stupid, but I've found that looking at the Scripting tutorials that they're all geared for newbies to scripting. If there was an overview of the language's traits made for experienced programmers I didn't see it, and it could be an idea for any updates. Thanks in advance for your help.

From the reactions to the 'hostility' inherent in the first post, I'd guess that not too many people have ventured onto the ScummVM forums. Whew. They don't even have well-written documentation as an excuse.

That said, not entirely sure why the post exists. I browse the Beginner's Technical Questions thread quite a lot and I've pretty much never seen a thread like the one described. I've seen plenty that have been answered [many times] previously, but that's par for the course of any online help, surely?

[Character Sketches]

I'm currently in the process of making a small game (3 rooms) on the advice of multiple people on this forum and shelved my full-length idea. My process is a little skewed, though, because I'm not the best artist and want to make the games on my own. So I begin with

Character Sketches: I draw characters. I think of strange characters to draw. I then think about a game I could make around them. Which leads to

Backstory: Where is the game set? Who do you play? What are your goals? I don't write any of this stuff down, I just let it ferment in my mind, usually while working on the drawing.

Puzzles: This step could just as easily be 'story', depending on which one you want to give more focus to. I'm quite old-fashioned and believe in puzzle driven gameplay, though. For my longer game concept I spent time dividing the game up into the obstacles that you'd need to overcome and then brainstorm over what those puzzles would involve. Currently the game I'm working on is quite simple, with only real two goals to reach - so once I had some ideas I sat down and wrote a walkthrough.

If you decide to write a walkthrough, take your time. Think of some interesting puzzles - not just using and giving items on hotspots. Make sure you read it back a while after you've finished. Odds are you'll find some loose ends and dead wood in there.

Taking stock: Make notes on what sort of needs you have, based on your walkthrough. Read through and note what puzzles are going to need hints, what conversation topics should be buried, everything that needs to be in a room, all the character animations you're going to need along with sound effects, etcetera.

Graphics: The stage I'm going through now. Like I said, not good with graphics so I'm not one to give advice.

From there on, what I'm planning at least is the logical chain of programming and writing as necessary. I've written down a lot of dialogue that struck me as funny when I thought about it so it won't be entirely on the run.

Bear in mind I'm a n00b, but this way feels perfectly natural to me and I haven't hit any trouble so far. Could be more suited to games of a more frivolous nature but, hey, that's where my interest is.

A new game from Baron?* I am so downloading this!



*Well, I'm sure Yarooze does great work too, but I'll be downloading as a fan of Charlie Foxtrot...

More congratulations on this brilliant and effortlessly charming game. I don't usually like one/two- room games but this was well written and thought out. I think the epilogue was my favourite part, but all of the characters and voices were great.

Not sure how many games Damsel has in her, but I'll be downloading them all as they came out.

Oh, thanks. I was worried that it had vanished due to legal reasons somehow.

Guess I'll take their advice and get QFG2 working in the meantime...

Did you try clicking on that download link?

I can't find hide nor hair of the game, nor even a hint of its existence on the current AGDI page and the links in the Games page are broken. Did anybody make a mirror? I've been Googling for it but I've only found old links to the AGDI page. I'd be grateful for any info.

Hmm, from the amount of 5DAS references on this thread I'd say that Yahtzee deserves credit for publicising AGS to the masses.

Mine was either Larry Vales 2 (definitely the first I finished) or Rob Blanc 2. I've been a lurker for quite a while...

Heh, just remembering that I was around to see Yahtzee 'quit' making games. Twice. Before he actually made his best ones.

Nice little game with exceptionally lovely looking characters. The collaboration idea, as mooted, sounds like a good one.

[* Puzzles reflect the world]

And I think you should have put spoiler tags around that, Jared.

At worst, I have saved somebody 3 years worth of frustration they didn't know they were going to have. And that's assuming they can work out HOW to get the empty wine bottles in the first place.

Now consider what it's like playing a game with such puzzles in isolation (i.e. no peer group to impress or to get help from).

That's how I played ALL my classic adventure games save for Sam & Max which one of my mates thought was cool. I didn't have the internet back then until well after Grim Fandango, and even then I never used message boards - the only people who even KNEW about adventure games in the rural Australian community I grew up in were people who I introduced them to, and none of them were at all impressed. (save the Sam & Max guy)

BUT this all depends on what you mean by 'such puzzles' - this thread, afterall, started off talking about the straightforward puzzles in MI2 Part 1 with didn't involve any Rube Goldberg things at all that I noticed. (Putting a bucket on top of an ajar door surely does not count?) I'm having trouble keeping up with the goalposts constantly shifting depending on who's doing the talking..

My point is that there is a social aspect to the issue of difficult/illogical adventure game puzzles that is seldom mentioned or acknowledged.   I don't think it's at all paranoid to opine on the subject, suggesting  that at least some of the enjoyment say they get from difficult puzzles is due to the social aspect..

Opining is fine.. but really it seemed to me that you were making an assumption that a foreign viewpoint to your own (liking puzzles) had to stem from a negative root (smug elitism). Probably not quite the right word for it, but that's what I meant by 'paranoid' there - they couldn't enjoy it unless they was something wrong with them!

I think that puzzles should fit the game...

You know what? So do I. And I think everybody else thinks that too, even though we've been kinda arguing over nebulous, barely-defined terms. But this thread is meant to be about the checklist so here's my new suggestion..

* Puzzles reflect the world Firstly, is your game in a complete cartoon world? (eg Discworld, Toonstruck) If so, knock yourself out. If not, think about what kind of world you are creating -  what sort of people inhabit it, what brand of logic does it work under? If things work differently from the real world is the player made aware of this? If it IS set in the real world why is the main character improvising hand grenades from Diet Coke and an old rubber duck? He's meant to be a former FBI agent - can't he just use contacts to get explosives? Which leads to...

* The player IS the character That means that the player shouldn't need to try anything that the character they're meant to be wouldn't. How many schoolgirls try and fashion gliders from an old cardigan and some straws? Would a schoolteacher really dress up like a policeman to search his neighbour's house? And at the same time, use the character's potential. A cat burglar should steal stuff and pick locks. A soldier should shoot people. A scientist should be able to make some cool stuff. If your jock wing commander talks and acts like Guybrush Threepwood the player will be terribly disappointed.* This doesn't mean that the player should have to go and research how this person would act - use player character dialogue to let the player into their mind and how it works.

Any amendments to those, people?


*Like I was when I played the Project Joe demo. He was meant to be a short-tempered thug!