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Well, it isn't a clown stuck in another dimension. Was it the scary clown in the title screen that gave that impression? I love that scary clown. So scary and hateable.

Thanks for all the good words though! Makes me wanna work even harder and get it finished soon ^_-

I think it's awesome that he lives in a town called Haunted Hollow. It shows he's a mystery-lovin' kid! Or that he has parents involved in the evil arts. Either way, sounds cool, I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, I was also surprised by this being your first post and being so close to finishing a game.

I thought I was probably one of the youngest here but I've just been made to feel like an old woman. I played all these old original sierra/lucasfilm games so long ago I can't remember what age I must have been ... and I'm only 20!

Ah, Leisure Suit Larry taught me so many dirty things when I was barely old enough to multiply (...speaking strictly in a mathmatical sense. What did you think I meant? Dirty minds...)

I'd have to say that my favourite games are easily long games where you can't screw things up or die, you just have to think, eg Lucasarts games. I don't really mind deaths in games at all (like sierra games) if, like has been said before, it's done well. One of the most frustrating games for deaths was Maniac Mansion - you could die just from ... pulling a vase or something. Very very frustrating, but it gave that game almost all of the great atmosphere I love it for. I was always on edge playing that game.

The worst thing about a game is when you can play for a significant amount of time after having screwed it up, not knowing that you've been on the wrong path for ages and there's nothing you can do. I prefer deaths to that, at least then you know straight away and you don't have to go back so far (as long as you HAVE been saving).

I love Garfield, so I'm forward to this one too ^^ Odie looks GREAT.

Thanks ^^
I couldn't decide which screenshots to use so I thought I'd try to incorporate them into the description.

I'm glad people think the graphics look good, it's my first time doing something like this so everything is a learning experience for me. Looking at the bgs I did at the start in comparison to the later ones, I can see all sorts of differences. Hopefully, it doesn't look quite so obvious in the game. I'm aiming for having each background look 'unique' but still all tied together in a similar style.

Oh, you should watch it. It's very awesome. But I'm getting off-topic now so I'll shut up ^_-

Cirque de Zale - March 2004

Welcome, people. Welcome!
I suspect it's time to warn you all of my upcoming new (first) release:



That's "Cirque de Zale" for those who find 320x200 resolution too freakishly small. Our hero... as it were... is Alexander Zale. He's just your average... well, he's not really. I don't personally know ANYONE who works in a circus cleaning elephant crap so I don't think that's average at all. I don't know, maybe YOU do. Make of it what you will. Somehow or other, Alexander finds himself in a typical situation - you're stuck in another dimension and some crazy stuff is going down. Happens to me every week. What?

Anyway, this wacky character finds himself in all sorts of crazy situations. Wacky, man. It's probably best I don't go on about it too much or else you'll just know it all. Anyway, it's very fun, I tell you!



That's right Alexander, it does sound good. I'm sure everyone likes the sound of it. That's why when it's released soon (about mid-March 2004), you should download your copy STRAIGHT AWAY. My god, don't think about WAITING or anything. The reviews will be incredible, I can assure you. The special effects alone, man... I mean, wow. The worst situation would be if you didn't get in on this game as soon as possible before all the downloadable game packages are gone. It's LIMITED, you know! You don't want to look UNCOOL or anything. Wait as patiently or as impatiently as you like, just make sure you rush to your nearest link and download your copy of 'Cirque de Zale' as soon as it's released!



CURRENT PROGRESS: Woohoo! Around 90% done now! So close! SO CLOSE!

Luckily I don't have to worry about speech animation for this scene.

OK, I think it's all looking fine except I'm getting an "Undefined token "If"" for that:
If (IsOverlayValid (handle)) RemoveOverlay(handle);
line...

EDIT: Oh, ok. Nevermind, I just figured out what that means ^^ If -> if ... problem solved!

THANKYOU person with the great nickname that seems to indicate an interest in the ever wonderful Futurama. It finally works perfectly! @_@

I've been posting this in the beginners forum up until now but I thought I'd see if I could get any more help from here before I went ahead and did much more.

Basically, I wanted to create an animated background controlling the delays between each frame. Gilbot helped me with that code and it works fine on it's own. Here for referance:

1. put on top of that room's script:
int bgtimer,curbg;
int bgdelay[3];

2. Put in "first time player enters screen" script:
bgdelay[ 0 ]=8;
bgdelay[1]=10;
bgdelay[2]=7;
curbg=0;
SetBackgroundFrame(curbg);
bgtimer=bgdelay[curbg];

3. Put in "repeatedly execute" script:
bgtimer--;
if (bgtimer==0) {
curbg++;
if (curbg>2) curbg=0;
SetBackgroundFrame(curbg);
bgtimer=bgdelay[curbg];
}


The only problem is that, as the room in question is used only in a short cutscene, I have some blocking functions in there such as Wait, DisplaySpeech etc. One suggestion was to use this:

int waitimer=100;
while (waitimer){
Wait(1);
room_b(); //change it if your repeatedly execute script is not of this name
waitimer--;
}


instead of Wait(100); and that worked but before I do that for every single function in that room, does anyone have any other ideas as to how I can continue to have my background animated regardless of other blocking functions?

Thanks.

I'm afraid I tried replacing the code with what you gave me there, and it hasn't made any difference. The player character still won't do anything but walk when I use the left mouse click on the 'look' GUI and then on the object.

OK, I'll have to try it all later because I've gotta take a break from this right now ^^

Thanks for sticking with me through my stupid problems!

That's fine for my Wait(100); line but I have many more functions going on after that. Should I use that formulae for every one of them individually?

Ok, little update. I created a new room, setup the bg code - it worked fine.
I transferred across my "before fadein" code - it worked fine.
I transferred across my "after fadein" code - stops working.

I took out everything from my "after fadein" code, except for what it begins with - Wait(100); and it still doesn't work, but after 100 game cycles ... voila!

Sooo, my guess is that the background animation can only run when it isn't being blocked by other script functions - but how can I solve this? It's essentially a cut scene so I need to have blocking functions in the rest of the code. Is there something I can do to keep this bg animation running while the rest of the script carries on?

I tried it, and it was still the same.

I also started up a new game, created the room again and put that code in - worked perfectly.

I think I'm gonna try recreating this room again from scratch and seeing if that cleans it up. There's something in my existing game that's blocking this and I might just bypass it if I start over with the room.

Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it.

I checked and rechecked that everything was in the right place in the interaction editor, and it's all fine. I tried testing and retesting the game, starting in that room and then going to that room from another.... it's the same everytime. I can't think of anything that would be affecting it, if the script's all correct.

Thanks for helping me as much as you have.

I originally had 5 but I'm trying it with 3 right now just so I can use your code exactly. Everything else that's supposed to happen in that room works fine (animation, etc) but the background is stuck on the first original frame. If I use the "fullscreen preview" it works but only as it used to, with the normal delays.

       At the top of the script for that room:

// room script file
int bgtimer,curbg;
int bgdelay[3];

    Then:

function room_c() {
 // script for room: First time player enters screen
bgdelay[0]=8;
bgdelay[1]=10;
bgdelay[2]=7;
curbg=0;
SetBackgroundFrame(curbg);
bgtimer=bgdelay[curbg];
 
}

    Then:

function room_d() {
 // script for room: Repeatedly execute
bgtimer--;
if (bgtimer==0) {
curbg++;
if (curbg>2) curbg=0;
SetBackgroundFrame(curbg);
bgtimer=bgdelay[curbg];
}
 
}

I think I'm having that same problem but it's with the MI2 template. I'm actually well into my game at this stage but I haven't changed anything in the global script, and have only changed individual rooms that came with the template.

Whenever I left click on "look" and then click on a hotspot/object/whatever, the character will walk over to the object/whatever, but won't display the text assigned for that hotspot. It works with no problems at all if I right click, when "look" is already highlighted for that object.

The left click has worked -occasionally- and it seems to be when I've already tried it once (or many times!) before and the character is already as close to the thing as possible, or is standing in front of it and I click on the object through the character.

EDIT: After playing with it some more, I've realised that when using the plain left mouse click (clicking on "look" and then on the object) the game will go to the walk-to point assigned to that hotspot/object, but won't display the "look" text.

If I use the right click (with "look" highlighted) it is reacting as if "walk to" was clicked. This means that most of the time, the character walks behind the object in question in response to the position on the object I clicked. It will THEN respond with the proper "look" displayed text. I have walk-to points assigned to all these objects/hotspots and yet they are being ignored.

If I use the left mouse click, I can get the game to recognise the walk to point but no text.
If I use the right mouse click, it ignores the walk-to point but will display the text.