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(CaesarCub posted while I was writing.)

At the time, monitors were almost all 4:3 aspect ratio, but 320x200 is slightly "flatter" than that (it works out to 4:2.5... better known as 16:10) â€" it really ought to have been 320x240. But that wasn't really a problem, because at the time people used CRT screens, which allow you to stretch or squeeze the on-screen image. So people used those monitor settings to stretch the image vertically so it would fill their 4:3 screens. That meant pixels weren't exactly square, but rectangles that were slightly taller than they were wide. Because everyone did this, artists created their graphics with that in mind: the graphics in pretty much all old-school VGA games are designed to be stretched â€" if you don't they look squashed.

I wonder if this is why Freddy Pharkas just looks so damned tall and lanky.

Thanks for your in-depth answers everyone, very useful! I think I might trial 320x180 and see how it looks. I can't imagine many people play with 4:3 anymore nowadays, so it seems the best way to go, esp if this ever somehow got on GOG.com or was distributed.

Hi all,

I built a project that I've become quite fond of which seeks to emulate the classic feel and style of the early Sierra adventures (notably, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Kings Quest 5, 6, Space Quest 4, 5).

At this, I checked out the games backgrounds and found they were created at 320x200. My current project uses the bg resolution of 320x240 (however, I'm about to port everything across to the newest engine and start afresh with new assets now that I have funding).

Is there any specific upside/downside to using 320x200 as opposed to 320x240? I do vaguely recall there being some talk about stretched images in old games that used this resolution (ie the HUD face in Doom/Wolfenstein being stretched and requiring a 'fix' on modern systems). I definitely want to avoid any kind of stretching. I'd also like to ensure maximum full-screen compatibility in modern systems. My initial guess was to use 640x480 display resolution but double the background sizes from 320x240 using nearest-neighbor filtering to retain the classic low-res look.

Any insight from anyone who's worked at these resolutions (or upscaled art from lower resolutions to a higher display resolution for maximum compatibility on modern systems) would be much appreciated!

i want to test!!!
i dont have skype can you post it in forum?

Hi,

Given that I may very well follow up on this as a commercial production / idea one day, I won't be posting any public links, and all testers will have to sign an NDA for builds played. Skype would be mandatory for any weekly meetings since I generally produce a new build every week and would want to go over it with everyone and gauge opinions etc.

Edit: I have found the required help elsewhere. If anyone stumbles upon this, feel free to privately message me if you would like to try it out. For the time being however, this recruitment thread is closed.

Project:
Working title: Edwardian Underground

Details:
A comedy adventure set in 1903 that follows the life (and an odyssey) of a sociopathic idiot who is attempting to keep the gas lamp trade going during the introduction of electricity.

Positions Available:
Currently, I am looking for playtesters and feedback testers. Should people find the game interesting enough that it would make a publishable product were it to be worked on full time, I will consider investing my time and savings into hiring a team of people to assist on the project (I would need a background artist and an AGS Advisor/scripter, full time).

Deadline:
Hoping to have a "Day 1 demo" finished by the end of August.

Comments:
The overall object of this game: to make you laugh. I want people to laugh and enjoy it as you would say, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist. Playable build is up and ready to go.

Anyone who is interested may PM me or reply in this thread. I would love to chat to you on skype and get some playable builds out to you.
The game is currently using a mix of my own 3d modeled assetts, compositions, and various photographs from the era as temporary backgrounds until paintings have been done.

EDIT: Have come up with a solution, thanks to all those who posted!


I've decided to go with Crimson Wizards suggestion for using animtaed Room Object. Link here

With that being said however, I've been eyeing the scripting tutorials for a bit, but I'm not quite sure I know where to start.

I followed the scripting tutorial 1 which explained how to use a hotspot to display a message on the screen. In my instance, I want hotspot 0, when interacted with, to set object 0 (which I have named Upanim) to animate once using loop 1. (Apparently I'm to use eOnce, but I'll toy with the additional parameters once I've gotten it working. Even if it loops for now it's fine).

Code: ags

// room script file

#sectionstart hotspot1_a  // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE
function hotspot1_a() {
  // script for hotspot1: Interact hotspot
 Display("This should animate something.");
 
 object[0].SetView(1);
 object[0].Animate(1, 5);

}
#sectionend hotspot1_a  // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE

Here's how I have the object set up, hopefully this is on the right track to using an animated object as a "Cutscene" or "animated sequence" of sorts.

Object 0 in my scene is of a 640x480 pre-rendered scene, view 2 (loop 0 is idle, loops 1-2 are animated for moving forward or turning left). The above code returns "Error Line 8: Unidentified Token "object". I've taken a look at the scripting tutorials 1 and 2 however I'm not quite sure they cover what I need as I've searched for defining tokens and the likes, no luck.

There is quite a few more entries in the scripting manual, would anyone be able to point me in the right direction as to which one to start for using animated Room Object in my scene? There's a lot of reading there, and I'd like to get right into the correct code tutorials. The way I see it, I'd rather just learn what is absolutely necessary for my animated scene section, rather than the entire scripting language at this point, as there is nothing else I wish to achieve with my test project.

EDIT: Have also toyed around with just using interact hotspot to equal "start object animating", but I'm not sure how I can assign a view to an object, I can only pick an image to represent them.

I guess turning to AGS to avoid C/C++ style coding was a bit of a folly, but I need to learn a bit of either language at some point, or general programming/scripting.

You can create avi movies for the "cut scenes" if you like. You can also add the BGs as sprites and create a view with them...
And theres probably other solutions for dealing with it.

The BG animation is intended for... ahmmm... BG animation... To add a bit of movement to the BG, not for creating scenes like you wish.

Ah right, so it'd be more for things like a simple fire crackling away or something like that?

Thanks for the suggestion, will see how it goes.

Use animated Room Object, or GUI with animated button.

Thanks for the advice, will check these out now.

Hello to all.

I'm fairly new to this, but I'd like to produce a segment of my game in the vein of this;

Gabriel Knight 2 Wolf Chase

Or something akin to the movement and gameplay style of Titanic: Adventure out of TimeTitanic: Adventure out of Time.

Would such a thing be possible with AGS? I have searched various threads but I see general Myst-style first person threads which seem quite possible in AGS, but lack the movement animations I'd be aiming for.

Basically, I would be looking to create a section of my adventure game which is similar to what you see above, with a real-time "first person" segment allowing the player to click forward, left or right to move forward, rotate left or rotate right, with pre-rendered frames (around 10 or so per animation). There would be a timer that is counting down from 60 seconds to allow the player to escape from a maze.

I have experimented with this using animated backgrounds, whether it's the way to go or not, but noticed it appears to only support 4 background frames, so unless there's a way to add more, I might have to exclude this method. I also ran into issues with the "Error: Too many events posted" error, but it's likely I was doing it wrong.

If so, could anyone kindly advise where I should direct my attention in particular (as I'm not sure whether it would be a case of animating the scenes as an object or something else).

Your help is most appreciated.

It is a known problem in old AGS. This was slightly enhanced in latest release 3.3.1 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50021.0).

By the way, what problems have you met when converting project?

1. If your project was created with AGS 2.7 or lower, than you need to first upgrade it till AGS 2.72, then up to 3.+.
2. Since 2.72 (at least) there are project options that allow to simulate some old behavior, which may be useful for upgraded projects.

Thankyou for your comprehensive answer! I'll try upgrading to 2.72, then to the latest version. Currently running 2.61. The issue with converting the project was an "unknown error" or something along those lines, however, I will try what you've suggested.

Hi to all.

I am working on a little test project, and am having difficulty with a characters movement. I've searched the forum so far, as well as the manual, however I'm not 100% sure what the issue is called, except perhaps "stuttering".

When the character is scaled up or "close to the camera" as you could call it, their movement as they walk around is smooth, yet, the further away they walk from the viewer, the more they begin to jump/stutter. I'm using a character that has an average pixel height of around 128px. Is there anyone who is able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here?

Video below:

Video of the issue
Note that it happens the worst in the final scene with the distance.

Scene Settings (Using ancient version of AGS as the project does not appear to be compatible with newer versions, else I'd have converted it).