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Sure thing, PM sent.

At first I did had a suspicion that this may be related to something I had changed in the engine during 3.3.5 development, but so far I found nothing wrong, and when I test your script in 3.3.5 it works without problem. So there should probably be some additional conditions to make this issue reproduce.

And the fact that second line works correct or Wait fixes it makes it more puzzling.

I have couple of questions: does it occur for you if you just make a default project and insert this dialog there?
Also, will same problem occur if you put these lines in common script (not dialog)?
Did you try to run the game without voice over?

I just had a chance to check all this.

No, it doesn't occur when I do this in a new (default) project. Therefore I assume there must be a trigger somewhere in the game that's causing this.
Yes, the same problem occurs if I put this into the normal room script (changing the ego: to cEgo.Say)
Yes, I attempted to run without voice but no difference.

I also did a clean install of 3.3.5 just in case.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or I'm just missing something (which is entirely possible).

I just upgraded a project from 3.3.0 to 3.3.5. This project uses extensive dialog trees and DisplayTopBar commands for non-portrait minor characters. Same as we did with Quest for Infamy. In 3.3.0 this worked fine, I reinstalled 3.3.0 and confirmed that it works. The dialog script for one of these characters starts like this...

Code: ags

@S  // Dialog startup entry point
ego: &157 Hello there!
  DisplayTopBar(25, 14, 16, "Beekeeper", "&8071 Hello, sir! How are you?");
return

In game it will say the ego line, then for the topbar line just display a zero "0".

If I duplicate the TopBar line so the code looks like this...

Code: ags

@S  // Dialog startup entry point
ego: &157 Hello there!
  DisplayTopBar(25, 14, 16, "Beekeeper", "&8071 Hello, sir! How are you?");
  DisplayTopBar(25, 14, 16, "Beekeeper", "&8071 Hello, sir! How are you?");
return

It display the ego line, the same "0" as before, then the correct "Hello, sir!" line.

If I throw a Wait(1); after the ego line in the original example, it works fine.

Any thoughts?

It looks interesting.  Are there any arcade/combat sequences?

No arcade sequences. The lute COULD be seen as such, but if you don't like it, it comes with an easy mode which is basically one-click.

One question - the sprites in the bottom screenshot in your post look a little out of sync with the backgrounds (I'm thinking mainly of the colours, particularly the cyan / very light blues of the barmaid's hair and the guy's backpack) - is this intentional?  Is there a special reason for this?

(Sorry couldn't help asking the question, the backgrounds look nice but this particular detail stood out to me as a bit odd.)

They're Faerie's! They're all bright and colourful! (The barmaid is in fact a backer and that's the closest approximation to her hair colour too!)

[GoG]

Be a Bard! The challenge awaits!!

In a world far away, a tale of great adventure is coming to the land of Uir. Join Finn the bard on his quest to write 'the greatest ballad ever' as he undertakes "The King's Challenge".

Every ten years, the ruler of the Faerie Realm, King Quilhairn, offers up his latest challenge to those brave enough to undertake the quest. Their prize? One wish, any wish that is within his power to grant, and the prestige of being lauded as "Hero of the Faerie Kingdom".

Do you have the will and determination to guide Finn on his quest? Play your magic lute to discover the secrets of the land and entertain its people. Meet all kinds of interesting creatures, and prove your worth in this classic point and click adventure.

Available in the next few hours on Steam, GoG, Humble and the Infamous Quests online store! (26th January 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2UZKg98WoA







GoG
http://www.gog.com/game/order_of_the_thorne_the_kings_challenge

Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/app/425600/

Infamous Quests
http://www.orderofthethorne.com

Interesting post. I think if you look at the successful adventure games of today they follow a couple of rules. They're smaller than golden age games, they tend to follow the simplified LucasArts interface (and later Sierra's) and they usually avoid a lot of those pitfalls that you mentioned above. Or at least try to. No dead ends etc. But in truth I don't think there's a formula that says "this is what makes a great adventure game".

Some of the posts talk about the balance between puzzles and story and that's the real art of adventure games. And in my opinion, it's really personal taste a lot of the time. I look at Gabriel Knight and I think God that's a lot of talking, when do I play the game? But to a lot of others it's the pinnacle of Sierra. The same goes with the amount of content in a game. Some people don't want long games, I know when we released Quest for Infamy which is old-school in length we had people say they wouldn't bother playing it because it was too long. Other people aren't content with the 90 minute chapters of a TellTale adventure.

What's retro anyway? People say my games are retro but I don't think so. Superficially the artwork harks back to the early 90's but we use a full 24-bit pallet and size down to the resolution we use. Low-res artwork is a design choice because we love it and it looks great, but it's also a cost decision - as a commercial developer we wouldn't sell enough games to justify HD quality artwork. But mostly, the design choice because we truly love that era of art.

Update: The game is nearing release (date to be announced shortly!!!) and we're currently going through the Greenlight process to make the game available on Steam. We've already been approved for release on GoG and Humble and all stores will sell the game DRM-free, so please if you can, upvote us on Greenlight and help us bring the game to a wider audience.

Hey guys, off topic a bit but our game Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge, is on Steam Greenlight and we'd really appreciate anyone who would upvote us!

Follow the link and there's some screenshots and a trailer.

Please upvote! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=538021949

I've toyed at making my own save system as well Dave, and I am in full agreement! Possible but damn it's complicated! I'll stand by my comment with QFI our biggest complaint was backwards compatibility with saves. Not that changing res while in game isn't an issue, but with the ease of patching via steam now it's easier to throw out a fix and if the saves worked after even a tiny change then that would make life easier and the end-user experience a hell of a lot better.

Our biggest port issue is Mac on Steam. That's just a complete MOFO.

Using the engine professionally I have the same issues Dave posted above. Honestly, I've been toying with switching to a different engine too because of the same reasons, and the same reasons keep me from changing. I could spend six months learning a new engine and fine-tuning it to make games or I could make a new game. But one day in the not too distant future that tipping point will come and I'll switch. If I could fix three things to make my games more user friendly they would be

* Save game compatibility between versions. This is the single biggest issue we get complaints about, hands down.
* The ability to switch between full screen / windowed mode and change resolution from within the game. This isn't even a new idea, it's been standard in games for over a decade.
* Support for non-Windows operating systems. Mac and Linux in particular.

I know its off topic, at least a bit (Sorry Darth), but I need to ask here, as I think, many players of QFI would like to know.
Will there be a QFI2?? And I don't mean Roehm to ruin....

Kings Challange looks very nice, but I'd love to see what happens next Roehm... And the cliffhanger at the end....

Most likely! We certainly have a lot of good stories to tell about Mr Roehm! QFI2 is on the cards, but it won't be this year! Roehm to Ruin is more a prequel than sequel!

Don't all games announced here have to be made in AGS?

Yep, at the moment all our games are made in AGS.

Thanks! It's certainly inspired by fairy tales and good old-fashioned Knights in shining armor stories. I'm sure you'll love it.

[Order of the Thorne]

We've been working on a couple of new titles since the release of Quest for Infamy and the first one is Order of the Thorne : The King's Challenge.

Help us get Order of the Thorne onto Steam! Please upvote!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=538021949

Order of the Thorne
Order of the Thorne is an anthology series about a group of Knights and Monks who are charged with doing good and keeping evil forces contained. Each game will have a different protagonist but is set within the same world of Uir, a world of fairys, elves, dwarves, knights and all the fairy tale mythology we grew up with. "Long ago, in the time before time began, the great realm of Uir prospered under the guardianship of the benevolent order of knights who protected and guided the people of its many kingdoms. These knights were known as "The Order of the Thorne". The price of peace is not so easily won, for where there is good, evil is not far behind. These are the stories of the Knights and their many adventures."

The King's Challenge
Finn the Bard sat strumming his lute in the corner of an old tavern. When word of The King's Challenge reached him, Finn finally knew what his destiny would be. He packed his lute, his father's magic book of songs and his clothes and left for the realm of the Fairy Folk. Once every ten years, the King of the Fairy Realm issues a call for the best and brightest of his subjects and now seven have answered. This year's challenge, while quite simple in concept, should prove to be most taxing and adventurous for the challengers. The Queen has volunteered to be hidden somewhere in the land, until a champion can find her. The prize for finding the Queen is the same as it ever was; The champion will win the right to one wish from the King, whatever is within His power to grant, and the title of "Champion of the Fairy Realm".

Progress and Design
This game has been in production for a long while and we're nearly finished. I hesitate to put a percentage on it, but the heavy lifting is done and the game is fully playable in alpha from start to end.

320x200 Resolution
Fully voiced (and recorded in a professional studio)
2D pixel art
Modern interface - optimised for tablets
PC/MAC/Linux

Release Date
We're currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds needed to finish the game. You can find it at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992695780/order-of-the-thorne-and-roehm-to-ruin-by-infamous?ref=nav_search

The game will be released by November 2015. Yes, this year! This isn't a Kickstarter campaign that the release date is off in the never-never, you'll be playing this before Christmas.







www.infamous-quests.com
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992695780/order-of-the-thorne-and-roehm-to-ruin-by-infamous?ref=nav_search

The new build is looking really good, I love the ability to easily build to different platforms and the ability to define your own resolution. Plus the while/break/continue/for functions are going to be very helpful.

With the changes to resolutions, is it possible to change the resolution at run-time? Using AGS commercially I have found that if there's a single issue that my customers have brought up that was solely to do with the engine, it would be not having this functionality. Is this something that's possible to look at?

What happened to Erpy? He was the main goto man in the community!

Wow. That was absolutely crazy stuff. Note to self and anyone wanting hints and tips about game development. Game developing is stupid. Do something else. Like talk to women. In real life.

I had decided to create a special mini-game about 5 months ago, one which I had completely forgotten about in the meantime. It was a GUI with arrow keys moving stuff, anyway, that's not important, what's important is that this module I had cleverly developed was a piece of crap and I am forever grateful that I went through my global script a module at a time before I went through it a line at a time.

Honestly though, I have no idea why this particular module (completely unrelated to these particular screens) would crash the game. Oh well, I just don't care now.

(1) I'll have a look at that. Good suggestion. Thanks.
(2) I've previously changed all the parameters, and I've removed all the optional parameters. Nadda.
(3) It's in the "Use Inventory on Object" function. Here's the entire section code :

SetTimer(16, 0);
GiveScore(5);
cEgo.LockView(50);
cEgo.Animate(3, 5, eOnce, eBlock, eForwards);
cEgo.UnlockView();
cEgo.FaceCharacter(cHunter, eBlock);
object[5].Visible = true;
object[5].Move(232, 154, 4, eBlock, eAnywhere);
object[5].SetView(24, 11);
object[5].Animate(11, 5, eOnce, eBlock, eForwards);
cEgo.LoseInventory(iSpore);
cHunter.LockViewAligned(60, 5, eAlignLeft);
cHunter.Animate(5, 5, eOnce, eBlock, eForwards);
Display("&1793 Upon impact with the ground, the spore opens and spews its dust into the air. The hunter falls to the ground paralyzed.");
object[7].Clickable = false;
cHunter.Clickable = false;
object[8].Clickable = true;
cHunter.Solid = false;
SetTimer(17, 2000);

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000005 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x004400DE ; program pointer is +77, ACI version 2.72.920, gtags (8,80)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify CJ on the Tech forum.

in Room 19 script (line 534)


Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

This may seem like a simple problem, but it's driving me nuts because as far as I can see, there's no reason for it to be happening.

Line 534 is
object[5].Move(232, 154, 4, eBlock, eAnywhere);

As you can see, there's nothing wrong with the code.

Here's how this problem started. I did nothing on this game for about 6 months, I had clean bill of health (ie it all worked properly and normally) prior to me doing nothing on it. I loaded it up again a week ago and some, not all, just some seemingly random object.Move commands are causing the game to crash. There are rooms where objects move and the game still works fine, and some other room, like this one I recorded the crash at, where it has started crashing. I really don't know how to define why this is happening, because it's started and I've done SFA to cause it, as far as I know.

I can block out that one line and the script runs fine. Yes the object is visible, and it's assigned to a legitimate view and loop.

Sorry if I sound grumpy, this is pissing me off.

~ Shawn

Super backgrounds!

Blackthorne understands what I mean about super blended sprites- take a close look at your Roger, the details are washed away in scattered shades and the result is something that looks like you took a smoothing tool to it.  It's just not something I find visually spectacular, but I admire your commitment to keeping with the Sierra style.  Good luck with this!

You think those backgrounds are good, you should see the amazing work that has been done on the asteroid pics! (Okay, thats a shameless plug, but I don't do the art so I can be slightly objective... lol)

That particular Roger sprite is directly ripped from SQ4. We just consider it logical to use the Roger sprite that would match SQ1VGA and SQ4.