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If you enjoy it, good for you, but I hope it's canceled soon.

I can understand why you don't like it and why folks don't like Discovery. But I wouldn't wish cancellation on either as there are people who enjoy one or the other or even both. I suggest for anyone that doesn't particularly like one show to just change the channel or just choose not to watch it. As for me... I quite enjoy the Orville. I think the sets are decent. I enjoy the aspects that are ridiculous. I always say that if I were to watch a show so it can be realistic, then I will just watch a documentary or reality show. It's why I enjoy shows like the Orville or Dr Who or movies like Star Wars or justice league. You have to learn to not be so critical and just enjoy something for what it is. That's why I enjoy watching these shows. Darth, you and me will be the only Orville watchers here. Now go make an Orville adventure game!!!! ;-)

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you know about a new Adventure community I created called "All things Point and Click Adventure Games". It's meant to be a community for everyone to promote their games, engines and needs for their projects as well as a place to discuss playing adventure games. You can find it here: https://plus.google.com/communities/116504865864458899575 And it is open to the public, free to join and no ads of course. I am trying to build up it's membership. If you find it useful, please share the link. There's not much there right now as it was started like 15 minutes ago, but with your help we can add content. This is not engine specific, but it is a place to bring all adventure gamers and developers together. The purpose is to expand on the resources you need to make a game or promote it and allow others to really get to know about Adventure Games in general. Check it out and offer suggestions and criticism.


About:
This is a great little community to catch up on news related to Adventure games, playing and developing them. You can find loads of resources here, advertise your game or needs and do other things here.

Announcements - Look here for news pertaining to Adventure Games or Engines or even this community

General Discussion is for discussing things about adventure games that don't quite fit in any other category.

Own physical copies of a classic game and want to sell it? Let us know in that category.

Created a game? Let us know in the Promote your game category. Or promote your engine in the promote your engine category.

Have a game on Indiegogo, Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites? Then promote your crowdfunding game in the crowdfunding category.

Want to promote your skills as a developer or artist or even a musician or any other talent? Then post that you are seeking employment.

Need Help on your game project? Seek help in the appropriate category.

Need hints or want to show us your work of art or even receive criticism for a WIP, please post that here too!!

Please make sure all content is appropriate for a 13 year old and enjoy yourselves!

That's pretty interesting Eri0o! I believe that is a similar system to what I was trying to do. I basically took every pixel from the mask and translated it to a walkable area based on it's pixel data. Each Pixel then became a spot on the Grid for EasyStar to find.

Selmiak: While I think unity is a powerful system and also free with the option to port to many other OS, there are still restrictions to it and there is also a learning curve as well. As much as I like Adventure Creator, creating games on it is not as easy as AGS or as easy as your own personal system. Plus, doing these things is a fun learning experience and gives some personal satisfaction. I Was hoping to learn to create an adventure game engine so that maybe one day I can also offer a portable port of AGS in the future.

Holy smokes! You did it! This is awesome. Thanks Kris!

(See the next post down by Khris for the solution)

Good morning,

Disclaimer: I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. Mods, feel free to move or even delete. I was looking to see if the "Ask your questions" thread was stickied around somewhere, but no dice. So maybe you can all help here.

I was trying to use Javascript and the frameworks Phaser.io and easystar.js to recreate pathfinding the way it is accomplished in AGS using masks and such. I can't seem to figure it out. I figured since we have some AGS developers here and adventure gamers, maybe this might work out better with your help. I have tried Stack Overflow and HTML Game Dev Forums and still do not have an answer. Contacting the authors of the frameworks resulted in no response. So maybe as a community here, you can all put my brain to rest on the matter.

You can see the other posts I made on this here: http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/30836-need-help-to-fix-making-an-adventure-game-pathfinding-room-using-easystar-and-phaser/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44359015/pathfinding-via-an-image-mask-using-phaser-and-easystar-in-javascript-path-not
Maybe what others have been saying in those threads might work as inspiration or a muse for you in helping me here.

Basically I Want to recreate a room image and a mask. The character can walk around the room only where the mask is colored in a certain color(Pink in this case) and use easystar to calculate the path. But it seems the mask and the image are not syncing up correctly.

Here is my demo: http://www.sw-bfs.com/examples/udemy/  You can use the Java console to see what is happening.
This is the room background: http://www.sw-bfs.com/examples/udemy/assets/room1.png
The walkable path I am using as a path: http://www.sw-bfs.com/examples/udemy/assets/walkablepath.png
The character image: http://www.sw-bfs.com/examples/udemy/assets/character.png

The latest code I wrote for this:

Code: ags

//Set the initial game paramters - Will start with 800x600 resolution and will use WebGL as a renderer and default back to Canvas if WebGL is not present.
var game = new Phaser.Game(800,600, Phaser.AUTO, '', { preload: preload, create: create, update: update});
var easystar = new EasyStar.js(); //Lets get easy star in here. 
var bmd; //This will be the object that will take the pixel data of the scene.

//Assets that will be preloaded at start
function preload(){
	game.load.image('background', 'assets/room1.png'); //The game room background that will be loaded.
	game.load.image('walkablepath', 'assets/walkablepath.png'); //The room's walkable area.
	game.load.image('maincharacter', 'assets/character.png', 32, 48); //The main characters animated spritesheet who will be walking around the room.
	
	
}

//The first function called when we start our game
function create(){
	//We are going to obtain the width and height of the background room.
	var backWidth = game.cache.getImage("background").width;var backHeight = game.cache.getImage("background").height;
	bmd = game.make.bitmapData(backWidth, backHeight); //Getting ready to determine the room size and get the pixel data of the walkable path.
	bmd.load('walkablepath'); //This will load the walkable path into memory. 
	game.add.sprite(0,0,'background'); // Will add the room background to the desktop. It will place the upper left part of the image to the upper left part of the screen.
	mainchar = game.add.sprite(200,516,'maincharacter'); // Will add the room background to the desktop. It will place the upper left part of the image to the upper left part of the screen.
	
	var walkableGrid = new Array(); //Lets make the grid that easy star will define as the walkable points. 
	var gridCollection;	 //This will collect the 2 dimensional array grids and push it to the walkableGrid.
	var walkableRGB = "rgba(255,105,180,1)"; //This is the RGB value of the area's the user can walk on. - Hot Pink is the RGB Color
	var color; //Will contain the pixel color of where the walkablepath search index is on.
	
	//Following code will begin at the top left corner of the walkable area and check each pixel for the hot pink color. If it finds it, it will add a 0. If not, 1. 
	for (i = 0; i < backWidth; i++) { 
		
		gridCollection = "[";
		
		for (j = 0; j < backHeight; j++) {
		color = bmd.getPixelRGB(i, j); //Store the color date of X and Y pixel
			
							
		
		if (color.rgba == walkableRGB){
			
			gridCollection = gridCollection + "0";
			
		} 
		
		if (color.rgba != walkableRGB) {
			
			gridCollection = gridCollection + "1";
			
		}
		
		//If there is still more width in the image, it will add a comma. Otherwise it won't and the array can be closed off.
		if (i != backWidth) {
			gridCollection = gridCollection + ",";
			
		}
		
			
	}
	//Close up and then Push the Array to the walkable grid
	    gridCollection = gridCollection + "]";
		walkableGrid.push(gridCollection);
	
		
		
      }
      
	bmd.destroy(); //let's destroy the walkable area path we created from view - we need to find a better way to do this process.
	easystar.setGrid(walkableGrid);  //Let's add the 2 dimensional grid array we just created to Easy star's pathfinding grid.
	easystar.setAcceptableTiles([0]); //Let's also make sure that easy star is aware that the 0 tiles are the tiles that the player can walk on.
	game.input.onDown.add(calculateWalkPath, this);
	
	
	
}

function update(){
	
}

function calculateWalkPath() {  //This function will be called every time the user clicks on a path to walk to. 
	console.log(game.input.x + ", " + game.input.y + "/");
	console.log(mainchar.x + ", " + mainchar.y + "/");
	//Now let's calculate the path and presumably use tweening to move the character from it's current x and y position to it's next calculated position
	easystar.findPath(game.input.x, game.input.x, mainchar.x, mainchar.y, function( path ) {
		
	if (path === null) {
		//Do something like a shrug animation from the character for not being able to find a path.
	} else {
		
		mainchar.x = path[0].x;
		mainchar.y = path[0].y;
		console.log(path[0].x);
		console.log(path[0].y);
		
	}
});

//Let's get this party started.
easystar.setIterationsPerCalculation(1000);
easystar.calculate();

}

Any suggestions for you gurus on how to make this work a little better?

Reminds me of a Dr Who episode with Matt Smith :-)

No guarantees or promises, but I wanted to give this a shot. Got myself a surface pro 4 for incredibly cheap and realized that my horrendous art skill is only considered very bad with a surface pen. So I have a new confidence for this. Question on the theme: how far do we have to go into the past or future? Can the past be let's say the 70's or 80's or even the 1800's or does it literally have to be like 500+ years?

And it's a female!!! Jodie Whittaker. I really was picky about when female would take the role. But I like this one!!!

I heard of babylonjs. I've been using phaser along with easystarjs and threejs. But I should look into babylonjs as it may encompass all 3 libraries.

I loved future wars(#1 on the list). Had the same interface as James Bond: A Stealth Affair. But the story was amazing. Too bad the developers never developed a sequel to it. Hope we get a mobile conversion one day.

Hey CW,

You didn't sound rude tome to be honest. My apologies... Sometimes you get a thought in your head and your hands type it out before you can write out a reasonable post and then you end up getting carried away with a bunch of ramblings...

But honestly, all I was doing was suggesting an attack plan to go forward with, eg: Planning what is needed, what is not needed, who will work on it and how it will be worked on, etc... Then it got into what I personally think would be a good strategy. Not that what I personally think really matters. It is merely a suggestion.

In fact, most of what was written was just spit-balling. One of our project management classes at work trained us to think up as many ideas as we can, even things outside the box. Then put it on a sticky and stick it on a board. Basically that is what I do out of habit.

But going back to your Visual Basic Comment... I am just throwing that out there as a solution. People keep wanting a multi-platform editor. And that is fine, especially since Mac is gaining a little traction in recent years. I hear C# is portable to other OS, but I haven't seen much on this or even a lot of successful ports. Maybe I am not looking hard enough. An editor in C++ seems ideal, but maybe not. I hear GUI related projects are very difficult with C++ or maybe just tedious. Again, I do not do C# or C++ so I can be wrong about that. The B4X software suite reaches all major platforms with minimum effort to port between the different systems and has a lot of community and developer support. Keep in mind that when I came into this community back in 98/99, VB was what a lot of developers were using for Windows Based Apps. In fact, a lot of folks in our community were using it too. So I do not believe it is accurate to say that this is an unfamiliar system. Then again, the community has changed a lot over the years and the new folks may not know VB or .NET language at all. Or maybe they do know it, but it just is not an ideal or preferred system, and that is understandable.

I just think that for AGS to move forward, we need to think modern and outside the box. So that means that nothing should be off the table when it comes to just what the considerations are. If we say "This is no good" or "We will never use this" without learning more about it or about what the community can do, then we are limiting our potential. And I say that for all things. Maybe B4X is not a great idea. Maybe we should stick with C#. Maybe we should convert to C++ or Javascript. Maybe AGS should be a Unity plugin... All I am saying is that we need to consider all options.

Please forgive me, English is not my primary language, so some of my posts might not make as much sense as someone else's and my grammar might be backwards.

I've never written anything useful in C++ and no matter how hard I try, I just can't work with C#. I am mostly a VB/VB.net, B4A/B4J, Javascript/CSS/HTML/PHP/mySQL developer. What I propose, I do not suggest without the consideration that a lot of work may go into this. But perhaps, this may reinvigorate the current development team to want to develop AGS further. Now, this is no easy task and it may very well years to get to a point that you can show the public anything promising... But maybe with a development team(CW, Gurok, Janet, Dave, Monkey,Alan, annd others), prior source from the AGS Source code to learn from as well as some other engines(Sludge, Wintermute) and a community eagerly awaiting for something new... The team can begin work on AGS 4.0 - a completely redeveloped AGS.

Daunting, no doubt. Hard to achieve, of course. But possible and very much worth it. This doesn't mean that AGS 3.4 needs to stop being developed on. Perhaps, in their spare time, the dev team or whoever else, can fix the remaining bugs. And in their spare spare spare time, the team can work on supporting even older games. But AGS 4.0 will be something fresh and new, yet familiar and useful. What I propose is to plan your goals, decide what stays, what changes and what has to be new. Get input from the community, see what features they would like, what annoyed them about the previous versions of AGS. Find a way to import and convert projects from 2.72 up to 3.4 into AGS 4.0 so that teams working on games are not left in the lurch. Figure out you target Audience: Newbies or experienced developers or a little of both. How should scripting be handled? Should it continue to use it's own scripting language? Or should we move to LUA, C++, C#, Javascript, etc..? Maybe support more than one, like Unity does. Could open AGS to more interested developers. What are the target platforms you want to support: Windows, Linux, Mac, ChromeOS, Android, iOS, Blackberry, WebOS 3.0, tvOS, Android TV, Amazon Fire, Tizen, Windows phone, Roku, Browsers, Consoles(PS4, X-Box One, PSP Vita, Wii U, Nintendo Switch), etc... Once figured out, research and decide the best way to implement said goals.

I can tell you what needs to go: Supporting backwards compatibility. This may mean that abandoning runAGSgame may need to be deprecated too. I like the idea that someone would use that feature for a game, but I have no idea how many have actually done so.

What I would keep: The text parser. AGS may very well be one of the best tools and to create a text adventure or visual novel game. I don't want to lose that.

How I would develop it: I would go with web technologies such as Javascript, CSS, HTML, JSON and utilize AJAX/JQuery. Almost all systems support this technology and their are tools to create native apps(Cordova, PhoneGap, etc..) Javascript can be obfuscated. HTML has great Canvas controls and Javascript is very capable of creating adventure games(http://jsgam.sourceforge.net/).

If instead you wish to stick with C++, perhaps we can use Emscripten(http://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/) to run it as a Javascript web app so it can be ported to other OS. I would switch from Allegro 4.2 to SDL 2.05 or at the very least Allegro 5.

I would definitely target Windows, Mac, Linux OS as well as Android, iOS, tvOS and AndroidTV, Tizen and WebOS 3.0(I have an LG TV with that installed and it is awesome and very capable of running great games!). Secondary systems to target would be the consoles. Lastly would be systems that will disappear such as Amazon Fire(Did I say that out loud? I hate Amazon), Blackberry, Amiga, etc...

As far as the editor goes... I would develop it using the B4X Technologies or continue with C# or convert it to C++. The editor would need to be working on at least a Mac and Windows OS. However, I can already see people griping about wanting it on Linux and some day on the mobile OS. That is why I recommend(and have recommended before) that B4X software be used. I know it is not free, but it is not costly either and B4J is completely free. A feature I think would be beneficial for the editor are team tools(EG: Incorporating GitHub, team communication, source control, etc..). I would also recommend bring back the animation editor and the interaction editor. Visionaire's and Adventure Creators biggest selling points are it's lack of coding required. Even one of Unity's biggest selling apps is PlayMaker(Which adds an interaction editor into Unity). As far as an animation editor, Mechanim is a big advantage for Unity.

Now I know I probably opened up a can of works here, but it seems there is not much else to go to in this thread. After six pages it seems that half the community doesn't want to pay while the other half does and they cant decide how to incorporate payments. CW still hasn't given us the exact answer he needs to hear to make this worth it for him. Perhaps he is not sure himself, which is understandable. The thread seems to be going in circles and I see some snarky remarks(No pun intended for Snarky) from one user to another, albeit slightly and not too terrible. I think too it is fair to say that a few people are drifting away from AGS to other engines because of interaction editors or because of portability or even the pure fact that some engine is charging money. I call that the Starbucks/Panera Bread effect... People think that because something is packaged in a fancy way and is expensive, that clearly this is the better product. (I hate both establishments, btw).

Sooo.. Then... AGS 4?

I thought occurred to me. What if we use someone to be the gatekeeper of funds. The community as a whole can recommend a feature, bug fix, core upgrade or port. The community votes on the most important of all of these needed. Or the main developers or administrators can decide which are the most important. We can then decide how much to pay for each feature to be developed. The community will then contribute to whichever ones they feel they want to contribute to. When the next goal hits 100% funded, it will be listed as a job that is available to be taken on.

We now advertise what we are trying to do with AGS next. A developer, whether in the community outside, will need to implement said suggestion/feature/bug fix to satisfaction. Once a developer does so, the allocated funds would be given to him upon completion. 3D rad had done this many years back. Had a much smaller community than this. But the developer was given thousands of dollars in donations and a lot user favorite features were implemented. This allows development to continue with those who want to work for free and motivate others who want to be compensated for their time. The product remains free and noone needs to purchase or donate if they don't want to and the money wont go to anyone unless there is someone deserving of it. And if noone claims the feature, then the donations for that feature, after a year of no bites, will go towards server costs or agsarchives or something.

Does this make sense? If anyone has used 3D Rad, you will know what I am talking about. Only difference this wont go to one developer, but will sort of work as headhunting.

It's not as good. And it's licensing scheme is absolutely ridiculous.

First off, Snarky, I wanted to say that I just saw your description under your avatar: "Private Insultant". AWESOME!

Back on track. It sounds like there is a reasonable amount of developers available to work with AGS. What I do notice too is that there are some games being developed that obviously come from customized versions of AGS(Wadjet Eye Games). Others seem to create their own versions of AGS rather than contributing to the main engine(Draconian). Maybe I am wrong about that? I know that in the past CW tried to incorporate Draconian features into AGS and at some point Janet released or gave us some idea of what they did with their ports. And it seems these changes are privately made due to rushing their projects along quicker than the official development team can and that is understandable.

But I think it would be more productive that if those who worked on their own versions of AGS would instead contribute to the official development. CW, if you do change your mind, you asked for advice. So here is my advice: You have AGS 3.4.1 released. Stabilize it and get rid of as many bugs as you can satisfy. Once done, pick ONE goal you want to achieve next with the engine. Don't add features. Did you want to change it over to SDL or Allegro 5? Make that the goal and specifically handle that until it is completed. Do you want to port to other OS? Then focus on that. The feature list of AGS is still advanced enough that it does not require so many little additions to be added. So stop working on that and focus on ONE big goal and get everyone involved to help you achieve it. I think you mentioned that you hoped that the ports were working properly before continuing on anything else. If I can ask, how difficult would it be to move the project to Allegro 5? It seems to have an updated core system and can be ported to various OS with less effort than it would to do it with 4.2. Looking at it's feature set, you might be able to add new features far quicker than before. I am not a C++ programmer and honestly, at the moment I am working on my Star Wars RPG and a couple of text adventures and apps. But I would love to know that if I decide to ever actually make an adventure game, AGS will still be here.

I have used Visionaire, Adventure Creator, Wintermute, Sludge... All great in their own way(Yum Cake as was mentioned above). Adventure creator best of that pack. Superb engine. But it is $70 and even though it has a "no programming necessary" approach, AGS is still easier to use believe it or not. And AGS 2D Features for a 2d Point and Click game are amazing and more advanced in my opinion.

Just my thoughts.

Snarky, this line here from what you posted, unless I am misreading it:

"It could have if I knew that I was doing things right. But I didn't. So this is not an issue."

Seems to tell me that if he felt he had a superior product he was working on that  he would then feel comfortable being paid for AGS. If it's not that, then scrap it. No need for a kickstarter, no need to pay anyone. But at the same time, CW requests help, assistance and a team. Perhaps "They" would like to be compensated for their work and that makes sense. So for me, in order to keep that in line with what CJ originally intended for AGS: To keep it free to use as we pleased, maybe crowdfunding is the way to go with this to hire assistance.

Honestly, I see AGS as a complete engine now as far as features go with the exception of very few things. For example, we need a stable bug free version which can be developed in time. People seem to want a multi-platform Editor. There are lot's of ways to go with this, such as a web based editor made of HTML, Javascript and CSS. Or we can use Wine to emulate the software. A big hick up is the fact that the engine is not easily created to export your games to other OS. I haven't paid to close attention, but it seems that the Mac port is having some issues. PSP has since been abandoned. iOS and Android seem to be somewhat working, but no easy way to export the games to those OS, particularly when it comes to Expansion files. And there are other marketable OS that are still nowhere near being ported to. Had these issues however been taken care of, a lot more users would be using AGS and quite frankly, would make this a modern engine for a good 5 to 7 years. But CW seems to be unsatisfied personally with the coding conventions and such in the backbone of AGS.

With that being the case, I personally feel that we would need to embrace the future: a)Either give up AGS entirely - which would be sad as I believe the best game developers here are AGS Developers and love playing these adventures more than the ones made on other engines. b)Rewrite AGS from scratch. c)Move to a more popular platform such as Unity.

The way I see it, Unity will always be free to use and sell games up to $100K. They will always keep updating the core parts and pieces of the engine so the developers wouldn't have to. They can support cloud building and porting to all the needed OS. And there are a lot of plugins and services that a user can allow to be used with AGS for Unity. My concept would be to create an editor that looks and works very much like AGS does now, allows importing projects from 2.7 and above and keeps all the features already there as well as expand and add new ones. At the same time, a VM can be built into it to play all versions of AGS so that we can still use PlayAGSGame function within a game for use of mini games. Unity uses it's own proprietary scripting engine as well as Javascript and C#. And quite frankly, I can see it being too difficult to port AGS Script as an internal scripting language anyway. This would mean that AGS could have more powerful scripting, no limitations and higher/easier portability. Not to mention that Unity has an editor available for Mac as well and the fact that Unity is not going anywhere. Exposing AGS to the Unity community as an open source project would also mean that you are opening yourself up to a whole new world of developers that can help with development.

To me, option B or C or what I prefer. C mostly. But if we go with A, who am I to stand in the way.

And yes, we say CW did a great job because, well: HE DID. So great job again CW and thank you for all your help. I do hope you reconsider, but you also have to be happy. In the meantime, I do believe there are others who can still step in for a little until a decision is made or the project is scrapped, like Monkey or Gurok.

I've been in this community for years. Last few years I just been mostly an observer. I have been mostly looking into Unity for it's portability to multiple OS. I think that is my only gripe with ags currently. What if we started from scratch and made a free Unity toolkit, 2D and 2.5d support only, with the ability to import and convert ags projects as well as a backwards compatible VM and save system. Instead of charging, maybe we can do an indie gogo or Kickstarter campaign. Either way, CW, you did tremendous work.

For all you legal experts out there, I had a question. I run a star wars game similar to star wars combine. I have Google ads running, like the combine does. I haven't earned a penny yet as it has only accumulated $12 in 3 years, which is less than the payout required.

However, modt of that has come in this month since there has been some renewed interest from the players. I don't sell or offer in app purchases or take donations. But at what point in my ad earnings would this become a legal issue if at all? The site will feature a blog as well as general star wars resources in the near future too. I just don't want to get sued. Thoughts?

Looks great! Might lend some support your way. I have been following BladeCode Engine for a while. Outstanding work on that. I am hoping the IF Engine gets some love soon too...

In addition to the facebook page, there is also a new forum that is being built: http://www.newageforums.com