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Mr Hyde: Beautiful description of marriage there, at least what it should be ^_^ If you're not married already, go around telling the women that and you'll have no trouble

I'd go a little further and say that I don't believe marriage has to mean anything at all. People getting married for a green card or something doesn't bother me at all, as long as they're happy with what they're doing. It only bothers me when the two people involved are in it for different things or something, or have been deceived or... something.

But that's in extreme cases. Ideally, I think marriage should just be a way for people to make formal a relationship based on love, friendship and a desire to share your lives together. That, and it makes filling in forms easier, makes it easier to refer to your partner (I personally hate saying "That's my boyfriend" and feeling like a 14 year old) and you get to have an awesome party in the form of a wedding (complete with open bar, of course)

I think Yoke put it really well. There are stupid people in this world, and some of them are also gay so don't assume when you see an annoying gay person that they're necessarilly indicitive of the whole bunch. Much like the Simpsons episode with Stampy.

"Well, animals are not like people, Mrs. Simpson.  Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been  mistreated...but, like people, some of them are just jerks."

A lot of marches these days are just an excuse to dress up like a politician and have some fun, get pissed, have some sex and whatnot, but I can't argue with the reason they started because if you look at history, as everyone has already said so I'm just repeating it here, they've very justified in wanting to celebrate the freedom they have.

Also, although gay people are totally accepted in many situations now, there are still some fairly major steps to get up. In Australia, I -think-, gay marriages are still illegal which is just stupid in my opinion. In this day and age, that this sort of thing still happens in such a public forum as the government... annoys me. For me, it's the same as still having a law that blacks can't marry whites. These days, such a law would sound simply insane. I'm no expert, but there are probably other similar laws and such, so I think they're still justifed in the marches and whatnot.

As for the "I'm gay, people! Do I want a coffee? Well yes, because I'm GAY" (anyone watch 'Little Britian'?) people, yeah... there's a certain desire to be both cool and different in all that and those people are just show offs ^_^

It's gotta be Elaine Marley for me, from the first game at least. I just got a kitten and named her Marley because she's such an awesome character ^_^

Yeah, I took a look at the issue after I read this post. I was really surprised to see it nominated in so many catagories... er... I mean, it totally deserved to be nominated in so many catagories -_- Thanks peoples! It made my day, it did.

I had a dream once about a big car crash nearby, letting loose a mad killer. His arms and legs were like these big steel poles and he kindof ran by *choonk choonk*ing them up and down, almost with a slide, roller boys style. Of course, he chased after me and the whole dream was just scary as hell. His name... was the Slasher. He had a Darkman style hat and coat.

Mind you, he didn't change gender or sleep with people, but it was still interesting.

Beserker and viktor, you guys freaking rock! ^_^

My fave band ever is Queen, followed closely by David Bowie and Kiss and I'm a huge Darkness fan... I go through stages and my current one is Kiss. God of Thunder, baby! >_<

Oh yeah, congrats and all that. I've had a few friends go through this and it's always a bit of a brain explosion as well as being a huge relief so I hope life... is... all good and all that.

My fave Elton song is 'Healing Hands'! Man, that's fun to sing at karaoke.

I don't know why I'm doing this , I hate getting involved in internet debates, but... *deep breath*

It's a choice to live publicly as a homosexual (that sounds so dumb...) but it's not a choice to be one, unless you have some serious self control. I myself am bisexual, and that's something I never choce but always was. I don't "live" as one, as such (god, I hate talking like this, it sounds retarded...)  as I have a long term boyfriend and it's probably never going to come up as an issue. I'll let people know if they ask, and I'll talk about women with my friends (and even my boyfriend, but in a more careful way ^_^; but I don't go around telling them because... well, it's embarrasing to say "bisexual" and expecially "bi". Urgh! Why isn't there some nice sounding slang term, like "gay"? Also, because I know there are a lot of people who get funny about things like that and I hate making it into an issue.

I'm not trying to sound like a "Some of my friends are *whatever*!" but I'm just saying that there's a little thing inside of me that just wants to bite like a pitbull when I hear people make statements about it being morally wrong or a choice or anything stupid like that. Homosexuality has been around since the beginning of time, it's not some new "epidemic", only the actual act of living as a homosexual could be considered so as, as you said, more people are "coming out" these days.

Let me just say again, I hated saying all of that. I hate sounding like a... stander-upper of rights or something. I think I'm gonna go have a shower -_-

[must]

Oh, those bugs in QFG4. I couldn't play the game for YEARS until I started looking up ways to get around the same old error I got everytime 5 minutes into the game. I'm glad I got past it, because I was a decent game in the end but it's just a classic example of how you must beta test properly, particularly with commencial games.

Personally, I adored the ending of MI2 ^_^ I wish the whole series ended there so I didn't have to keep looking at boxes of MI4 on the shelves with such sadness.

When I think about all the elements that put me off a game, although it's important, puzzles probably aren't up the top. I'll still love a game even when I've been frustrated to the point of murder by ridiculous puzzles.

For me it's probably a visible lack of effort in some areas. As people have said, when you look at a game with great backgrounds but a poor walkcycle and crummy animations, it tends to be a bit disappointing. I probably experienced this with Kings Quest 7 the most. It was a fun game, with some cool puzzles and a nice, fairly original story and gameplay, but I just couldn't stop thinking about how cheap and 'indie' it felt because of the shoddy animations in so many places.

Whoa, really?! o_O How cool for me! That's from the Inventory, is it? Thanks for letting me know! ^_^

*does a happy dance*

Aww, thanks for the nomination, Neil ^_^

Just out of curiosity, did you get this problem sorted italy?

Czar, I freaking hate you. I'm sending you the bill for the vomit-covered keyboard in front of me.

Sorry for dredging up another old thread, but I'm only just now considering this problem again. Again, if this doesn't work, it's no big deal.

Re: Gil's suggestion - I don't suppose you could help me flesh that idea out?

I understand your idea. When you're at the title screen, if you go to 'copy' a particular saved game, the engine needs to "load" that game without actually just loading it for play, then save it to another specified slot. I'm afraid I still don't understand your code though.

I suppose also that there's no way to achieve this without the game loading the saved game, hence leaving the title screen.

Well, I just thought I'd have one more go at this but if it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work.

Hehe, that's fine. I make it a rule not to play demos. I prefer getting the full experience of playing the completed game ^_^ I can wait.

I thought I'd post this here in case anyone else was interested in a way to get that classic SNES RPG HP display. You know, the one where the damage appears atop the character's head and animates in some way? I've got it appearing above the damaged character's head and dropping down (with a little bounce) before disappearing. Of course, tweak this code to suit your own needs.

First of all, create a function like this:

Code: ags

function DamageChar (int hurtchar) {
  sit=0;
  int it=0; //running index, to check if there's a free slot for text
  while (it<10){
     if (damchar[it]==0){ //if a slot is available
        damchar[it]=hurtchar; //set it to "occupied"
        damoverid[it] = DisplaySpeechBackground (hurtchar, dmgreport); 
     if (sit == 0) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-30);
        it=20; //break out of loop
      } else it++;
    }  //end while
  }

Then, in repeatedly_execute (/_always):

--Put here whatever code you use for calculating the injury to a character at the time it is attacked--

Code: ags

	  StrFormat (dmgreport, "%d", mondmg);
 	  DamageChar (XXX);

** Replace XXX with the character's name, and "mondmg" is the integer my calculated damage went into. If you'd like a word, for example "YOU MISSED", just use " StrFormat (dmgreport, "YOU MISSED"); "

Then elsewhere in repeatedly_execute (/_always):

Code: ags

int it=0; //checks all slots for whether the speechs had expired
while (it<10){
  if (damchar[it]){ //if there was a message for this character
    if (IsOverlayValid(damoverid[it])) { //Is it still displayed?
         sit++;
         if (sit == 3) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-27); 
         else if (sit == 6) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-25); 
         else if (sit == 9) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-22); 
         else if (sit == 12) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-18); 
         else if (sit == 15) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-14);  
         else if (sit == 18) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-9);
         else if (sit == 21) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-4); 
         else if (sit == 24) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y); 
         else if (sit == 27) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-7); 
         else if (sit == 30) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-10); 
         else if (sit == 33) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-8); 
         else if (sit == 36) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-5); 
         else if (sit == 39) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y);       
    } else damchar[it]=0; //Expired, mark it as "free"
  }
  it++;
}

As I said before, that's just my own action of the text falling. You can do anything you want here. In fact, the more creative, the better! I'd love to come up with a way to make the text perform a movement, then actually fade out, or "fold in on itself" as happens in some RPGs. There are all sorts of things you can do.

Big thanks to Gilbot, Strazer and others for helping a LOT with this.

You know, I do wish my brain would send me postcards from wherever it goes sometimes.

*sigh* This is why I need the tech forum, these little incredibly obvious things I just can't see.

THANKYOU Strazer ^_^

EDIT: Am I allowed to stick a thread about this in the Tech Archives? I think this kind of function would be helpful for a lot of people, and I have it tweaked really well now.

Well, since the thread is up again, I might as well say that I'm happy to hear you guys are still working on this. I wanna play this game, dammit! ^_^

Well, I've been away from here for a few weeks, and have just started work on the game again. Seeing as it's the same problem, I'll just resurect this old thread rather than start a new one about the same thing.

Anyway, I have this code working quite well, and have the HP text going in the general pattern I'd like it to. Basically, I have this function:

Code: ags

function DamageChar (int hurtchar) {
  sit=0;
  int it=0; //running index, to check if there's a free slot for text
  while (it<10){
     if (damchar[it]==0){ //if a slot is available
        damchar[it]=hurtchar; //set it to "occupied"
        damoverid[it] = DisplaySpeechBackground (hurtchar, dmgreport); //I'd checked the manual, seems there's no DisplaySpeechBackgroundAt(). Well I suppose you had set up dmgreport somewhere else already, right?
        it=20; //break out of loop
      } else it++;
    }  //end while
  }

With this in repeatedly execute:

Code: ags

int it=0; //checks all slots for whether the speechs had expired
while (it<10){
  if (damchar[it]){ //if there was a message for this character
    if (IsOverlayValid(damoverid[it])) { //Is it still displayed?
       sit++;
       if (sit == 1) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-30);
       else if (sit == 5) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-29); 
       else if (sit == 10) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-27); 
       else if (sit == 15) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-25); 
       else if (sit == 20) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-20); 
       else if (sit == 25) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-15); 
       else if (sit == 30) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-10);
       else if (sit == 35) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-5); 
       else if (sit == 40) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+3); 
       else if (sit == 45) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+12); 
       else if (sit == 50) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+20); 
       else if (sit == 55) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+15); 
       else if (sit == 60) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+13); 
       else if (sit == 65) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+14); 
       else if (sit == 70) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+17); 
       else if (sit == 75) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+20);
    } else damchar[it]=0; //Expired, mark it as "free"
  }
  it++;
}

This gives it the appearance of appearing high on the character, then dropping down to the ground with a little bounce. It's not perfect, but I can work on the timing. The only problem is that as soon as the text appears, it appears in the usual top-centred position above the character's head for just a nanosecond before moving where I put it. I'm not sure how to to get it to appear in the position I specify in the line "if (sit == 1) ..."

EDIT: Oh, and I had already tried this code:

Code: ags

       if (sit == 0) {
         MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-30);
         sit++;
       }
       else if (sit>0) {
         sit++;
         if (sit == 1) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-30);
         else if (sit == 5) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-29); 
         else if (sit == 10) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-27); 
         else if (sit == 15) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-25); 
         else if (sit == 20) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-20); 
         else if (sit == 25) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-15); 
         else if (sit == 30) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-10);
         else if (sit == 35) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y-5); 
         else if (sit == 40) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+3); 
         else if (sit == 45) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+12); 
         else if (sit == 50) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+20); 
         else if (sit == 55) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+15); 
         else if (sit == 60) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+13); 
         else if (sit == 65) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+14); 
         else if (sit == 70) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+17); 
         else if (sit == 75) MoveOverlay(damoverid[it],character[damchar[it]].x,character[damchar[it]].y+20);
       }

Only to get the same result. I still can't stop the text appearing in it's default place before being moved.

I myself would particularly emphasise DIy games. That site does a very good job of reviewing just about everything out there on a very frequent basis. I'm very happy I discovered it, personally ^_^